Wrobel, Arthur (Ed.) - Pseudo-Science and Society in 19th-Century America (1987)

Pseudo-Science
and Society
in NineteenthCentury America
This page intentionally left blank
Pseudo-Science
and Society
in NineteenthCentury America
ARTHUR WROBEL, Editor
THE UNIVERSITY PRESS OF KENTUCKY
Copyright 1987 by the University Press of Kentucky

Scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth,
serving Bellarmme College, Berea College, Centre
College of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University,
The Filson Club, Georgetown College, Kentucky
Histoncal Society, Kentucky State University,
Morehead State University, Murray State University,
Northern Kentucky University, Transylvania University,
University of Kentucky, University of Louisville,
and Western Kentucky University.
Ed1tonal and Sales Offices: Lexington, Kentucky 40506-0024
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Pseudo-science and society in nineteenth-century

America.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. Therapeutic systems-United States-History19th century. 2. Quacks and quackery-United StatesHistory-19th century. 3. United States-Social
life and customs-History-19th century. I. Wrobel,
Arthur, 1940R733.P78 1987
615.5
87-12464
ISBN: 978-0-8131-5544-9
Contents
Acknowledgments
1. Introduction
vii
ARTHUR WROBEL
2. Robert H. Collyer's Technology of the Soul
21
TAYLOR STOEHR
3. "Nervous Disease" and Electric Medicine
46
JOHN L. GREENWAY
4. Hydropathy, or the Water-Cure
74
MARSHALL SCOTT LEGAN
5. Andrew Jackson Davis and Spiritualism
100
ROBERT W DELP
6. Phrenology as Political Science
122
ARTHUR WROBEL
7. Sexuality and the Pseudo-Sciences
144
HAROLD ASPIZ
8. Washington Irving and Homoeopathy
166
GEORGE HENDRICK
9. Sculpture and the Expressive Mechanism
180
CHARLES THOMAS WALTERS
10. Mesmerism and the Birth of Psychology
205
ROBERT C. FULLER
11. Afterword
223
ARTHUR WROBEL
Contributors
234
Index
237
Acknowledgments
I wish to thank friends and colleagues who cheerfully read the

various drafts of my contributions to this volume and made
helpful suggestions with tact: Lance Olsen, Joseph A. Bryant, Jr.,
and Rush Welter. Taylor Stoehr shared with me a wealth of
valuable information and minimized errors and oversights with
his incisively critical readings. The volume also benefited immeasurably from the care with which Howard Kerr read the
entire manuscript and gave of his knowledge and critical insights. Whatever errors remain, however, are my responsibility.
My dissertation director at the University of North Carolina,
C. Carroll Hollis, not only introduced me to the subject of the
nineteenth-century pseudo-sciences, and phrenology in particular, but nurtured me both as a mentor and as a friend. I also
wish to acknowledge my appreciation and debt to S.B.W., who
saw me through the long foreground that led to this book, and to
my wife, Maureen, for her patience and love.
Arthur Wrobel
ARTHUR W R O B E L - - - - - - - - - -
1. Introduction
Recent studies about the nineteenth-century pseudo-sciencesprimarily phrenology, mesmerism, spirtualism, hydropathy,
and homoeopathy-have assumed a new character. Instead of
being polemics by either partisans or opponents, or mere journalistic histories recounting the sensational and eccentric,
these studies range from the popular and biographical to the
intellectually esoteric. They are also interpretive. Scholars are
discovering that these disciplines were warmly received during
their heyday, not only among the uninformed and credulous but
also among the respectable and educated, and that the diffusion
and practice of these disciplines intertwined with all the major
medical, cultural, and philosophical revolutions in nineteenthcentury America.
On the surface, these pseudo-sciences have apparent differences. Homoeopathy and hydropathy, for instance, were
medical sects, while spiritualism, mesmerism, and phrenology
explored uncharted avenues of knowledge. Such differences,
however, should not be overemphasized. Of greater significance
are the remarkable number of premises, methodologies, and
teleological assumptions they shared and that placed them
squarely in the midst of major currents of nineteenth-century
thought. Their doctrines complemented the national belief that
America occupied a special place in mankind's history; denied
the distinction between body and mind, the material and the
spiritual; gave credence to the message delivered by reformers
that health and happiness are accessible to men; and presented a
ARTHUR WROBEL
unified view of knowledge and human nature that seemingly

accounted for the structure of nature and man's place within it.
Rationalistic, egalitarian, and utilitarian, they struck familiar
and reassuring chords that were pleasing to the ears of Americans.
The essays in this volume reflect the richness and diversity
that research in these disciplines offers. They illuminate and in
some instances alter our understanding of some major nineteenth-century American cultural configurations. And they
suggest how several of these sciences survived the profound
revolution in scientific methodology at the turn of the last
century and extended well into our own-some intact, others in
modified form, and others as renascent influences on disciplines currently held as "true" sciences. Most of the essays in
this volume also have bearing on the seemingly insoluble debate
over demarcation, the criteria that differentiate "true" science
from "pseudo" science.
Science, as formalist critics assert, must be consistent to be
true; but for scholars who approach it from the perspective of
the history of science, the problem is compounded. Taylor
Stoehr's essay provides fuel for historicist externalists who take
into account the degree to which the politics, cultural milieu, or
ideology of a given era determines or influences judgments as to
whether a discipline is proper science or not. In tracing the
colorful career and intellectual peregrinations of a pseudo-scientist par excellence, one Robert Collyer, Stoehr leaves us wondering whether arguments about demarcation should not take
into account changing concepts of the scientist and his discipline. Collyer's case reminds us that discovery is a precarious
affair; the ability to ask the right questions or recognize the
proper application often distinguishes a scientist from a pseudoscientist. In short, the fineness of the line separating science
from pseudo-science very nearly gives the whole demarcation
debate, as one scholar maintains, mere emotive value.
Also, this distinction often becomes obvious only in retrospect. As John Greenway shows, the many nostrums and mechanical devices that filled catalogues and newspapers in the
last quarter of the nineteenth century shared the same premises
Introduction
and even the language of legitimate research programs. At a

time when the medical community was unable to account for
seeming electrotherapeutic cures and the properties and nature
of electricity were still unknown, the gulf separating commercial electric gadgets claiming to cure everything from nervous
exhaustion to constipation from those sanctioned by the medical establishment was negligible. Greenway also underscores
the point implicitly made in several ensuing essays in this
volume: after pseudo-scientific explanations proved inadequate, researchers were forced into new ways of thinking about
the etiology of disease and pursued new areas of research.
During their heyday, nevertheless, all the pseudo-sciences
explored in this volume amassed an impressive list of testimonial successes. While questions can be raised about the legitimacy of their cures or the experiences they professed to unfold,
we know that a large segment of the American population did
believe in their efficacy. Given the state of contemporary scientific theory and practice, all these disciplines could even lay fair
claim to being legitimate sciences. Their methodological underpinnings were securely grounded in scientific induction, or
Baconianism. Empirical rather than speculative, reasoning from
experimentation and observations rather than a priori arguments, Baconianism universally came to be regarded-according to Edward Everett, editor of the North American Review
and a Unitarian minister-as "the true philosophy." 1
For some of the newer sectarian medical movements, induction was a relatively straightforward matter of observing the
effects of certain drugs or procedures. In many ways, homoeopathy and hydropathy seemed to have greater claims to empiricism than did orthodox medicine, which was comprised of a
motley admixture of folk wisdom and intuitive approaches to
healing.
In attempting to understand the living organism in light of its
own laws, Samuel Hahnemann, the German founder of homoeopathy, devised a "law of similars," which, he asserted, was a
"law of nature." Imitating nature, which they claimed often
cures one disease by generating a milder one with similar symptoms, homoeopaths administered medicines or curatives in in-
ARTHUR WROBEL
finitesimal quantities that were known to generate in a healthy

person symptoms like those exhibited by the patient. In combating the less virulent, artificially induced disease, homoeopathic theory asserted, the body cured simultaneously the
primary disease. The process of testing the effects of these drugs
or curatives was known as "proving." In a prover's scrupulous
recording of every symptom he felt after taking a dose, the
homoeopaths had their strongest claim as an inductive science.
For a period of forty years homoeopathy enjoyed sufficient respectability to challenge orthodox medicine as the primary
system of medical care in this country. 2
While the lore in historical annals recording cures wrought
by hydrotherapeutics, especially the precedent of the Roman
Thermae, formed the long foreground of hydropathy, its more
immediate history and its development into a medical system
can be traced to Vincent Priessnitz. Noting how native Silesian
peasants successfully used cold water compresses to aid in
reducing the swelling of bruises or treating tumors in cattle,
Priessnitz cured himself of injuries sustained from a severe
horse fall with the consumption of cold water and the use of cold
compresses. By the mid-1830s, Europeans and Americans made
medical hegiras to Griifenberg in Silesia. They were fleeing the
violent procedures of orthodox medicine-blistering, puking,
purging, cupping, bleeding, and poisonous doses of mercury and
arsenic-as well as seeking this gentle therapy for relief from a
host of ailments ranging from dyspepsia and prolapsus uteri to
broken bones and rheumatism. Very soon water-cure emerged in
this country as a viable system of medical treatment. It attracted adherents from all classes of society. No section of the
country enjoyed a monopoly on the system, but the Northeast
nurtured the system's leaders, published most of its monographs and periodicals, and refined its methodology.
While homoeopathy and hydropathy largely confined themselves to the curing of bodily ailments, the other pseudo-sciences-phrenology, mesmerism, and spiritualism-used empirically derived data to carry their scientific investigations into
considerably wider areas. By nineteenth-century standards
their empiricism was beyond reproach. Phrenology's founder,
Introduction
Franz Josef Gall, a brilliant Viennese anatomist who made revolutionary discoveries about various neurophysiological functions, also established the physiological basis of mind. His
theories were soundly based on comparative anatomical studies
of the brain. Gall attributed the higher mental functioning of
humans over other species to humans' more highly developed
cortexes. He also attributed differences in personal characteristics among humans to cortical differences. He went even
further. He identified twenty-seven faculties that he felt comprised the cognitive, sensory, and emotional characteristics of a
human being. He taught that these faculties are located in
identifiable areas of the brain and that the contour of the cranium provided an observer with an accurate understanding of
the development of those faculties. 3
Mesmerism had equally convincing claims to science. It
provided a reasoned theory based on repeated successes and
experiments to account for the cure of bodily diseases by inspired individuals from Jesus to a late eighteenth-century Austrian exorcist, Father J.V. Gassner. This movement's founder,
Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815 ), believed that all human
bodies are subject to an invisible magnetic fluid. Physicians
could cure imbalances or misalignments of this magnetic forcefield by manipulating the fluid in a patient's afflicted areas,
using either magnets or, with the more gifted healer, the passing
of hands over the body. Mesmer's theory had just enough science
to appeal to a new rationalism-his hypothesis of a universal
fluid derived from Newton's electromagnetic ether-and
enough spiritual overtones to appeal to latent religious needs as
well. Though a Royal Commission that included Benjamin
Franklin, the chemist Lavoisier, and the physician Guillotin
denied the existence of animal magnetism and consequently
the utility of Mesmer's therapeutics, followers of Mesmer continued to effect cures for ailments ranging from hysteria to
mysterious pains. 4 By the time mesmerism blossomed in the
1830s on these shores, it had assumed a new guise having
sinister and even occult overtones: it could cure ailments, but a
mesmerist could also control the mind of another and even
elicit clairvoyant visions. 5
ARTHUR WROBEL
An eclectic synthesis that included mesmerism's probing of

telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition, the doctrines of the
Swedish mystic Emanuel Swedenborg, and the social thought of
Charles Fourier formed the next major pseudo-science to
emerge in America-spiritualism. 6 A doctrine about communication between spirits of the dead and human mediums, spiritualism began in Hydesville, New York, in 1848 when two
sisters, Margaret and Kate Fox, professed to have received intelligent communication, in the form of mysterious rappings,
from the spirit of a murdered man. Spiritualism absorbed the
Swedenborgian doctrines of the correspondence between material and spiritual realities and the existence of a hierarchical
series of spiritual spheres surrounding the earth. Swedenborg
did spirtualism another service when, in 1848, his spirit and
that of the Greek physician Galen allegedly visited the mesmerized body of Andrew Jackson Davis, soon to be dubbed the
"Poughkeepsie Seer." According to Davis, Swedenborg promised to make him a channel of divine truth and wisdom and
Galen proclaimed him a clairvoyant healer. The latter prophecy
had merit insofar as the nineteen-year-old Davis started healing
by prescribing cures after visualizing the inner organs of patients. 7 All such occurrences appeared to verify the claims
spiritualists so often made, namely that theirs was an empirical
science that repeatedly proved the reality of spiritual communication and cured bodily and spiritual ills.
Encouraged by such discoveries about the relation of anatomical and physiological characteristics to the operation of the
human mind, about the existence of paranormal mental activities, about reciprocal communications between the mundane and spiritual worlds, the various pseudo-scientists
widened their field of inquiry. They felt about their various
disciplines as Emerson did about mesmerism, that "it affirmed
unity and connection between remote points, and as such was
excellent criticism on the narrow and dead classification of
what passed for science." 8 Their discoveries also appeared to
confirm their age's certainty that mind and matter were transcendentally linked. Homoeopathy, for instance, attributed disturbances in the body to perturbations in a person's spiritual
Introduction
force that, in good health, animates and governs the body. Thus,
homoeopathic doses were not aimed at the disease but at
strengthening the spiritual force and reestablishing the harmonious interrelationship between the two spheres. 9 Similarly,
Davis taught that discord in man's spiritual principle caused an
ensuing material imbalance manifesting itself as disease. 10
Speculations about the constitution of man and its relation to
external meaning at this time were as understandable as they
were irresistible. For the first time men seemed close to discovering empirical proof supporting ontological and teleological premises that their age inherited from eighteenthcentury discourses on natural law-that system of universal
and invariable laws which sustain the visible creation. The
works of the pseudo-scientists regularly invoked the sacred
terms of "natural law" as the proof-stone when assaying their
own doctrines. Andrew Jackson Davis's "harmonia! philosophy," that an eternal and immutable set of divine principles
rules the universe, is but a recasting of natural law; the true
initiate who discovered the spiritual and material worlds could
expect to find the same principles of natural law governing both
realms. 11 The premise of an intimate relationship between the
human world and nature's eternal processes offered the hope
that a new moral social order and unlimited personal improvement could be lawfully engineered.
Both ends of the cultural spectrum welcomed such promise.
With major intellectual upheavals and rapid changes threatening the old stabilities, conservatives faced the future anxiously.
More than novel and imaginative solutions, they desired some
form of authority. To many of them, phrenology; spiritualism,
and mesmerism had the potential to design institutions based
on the finest intellectual tools available and to offer sound
analyses of human nature. Utopian visionaries as well welcomed their guidance in plotting a new and permanent order
comprised of enlightened institutions and people.
Ordinary people with reasons less grandiose but no less compelling listened attentively. They wished to know about the
laws governing their own constitutions, to reach beyond the
merely temporal and establish connection with the eternal, or
ARTHUR WROBEL
simply to improve their lives by realizing greater health and the

full use of all their innate faculties. As Marshall S. Legan shows
in his survey of water-cure in America, hydropathy attracted all
classes of society, the prominent and anonymous alike, and it
surfaced in all sections of the country. Further, hydropathic
theory reasserted the widespread belief that ultimately all
meaningful phenomena of life, including health, are intimately
related to nature's processes. The prospect of consulting science
and nature rather than traditional wisdoms appealed to many in
this country where egalitarianism assumed the force of an ideology and men assigned divine and regenerative qualities to
nature.
Though the hopes these psuedo-sciences raised appear misguidedly extravagant, they were not atypical. In collapsing the
spiritual and physical into a unity, these pseudo-sciences came
to resemble any number of social and health reform movements,12 except for one important difference: they appeared to
offer corroborative inductive support, not mere visionary hopes.
Their empirical pretensions placed them amid the major forces
of change in the nineteenth century.
Predictably, these pseudo-sciences became embroiled in
most of the age's reform movements, lending their voice to the
period's restless search for new human, social, and political
solutions. While their proposals were not always novel, they
vigorously challenged the musty premises that they believed
perpetuated injustice, disease, social unrest, and crime. For
instance, Davis, among others, committed himself so powerfully to the eradication of other social evils-drunkenness, violence, racial and sexual injustice, and even war-that the
spiritualist movement eventually fragmented. In his essay
Robert Delp details the last years of Davis's life when he bitterly
struggled to keep phenomenal spiritualism, namely rappings
and communicating with the dead, from dominating his revelation of the reformatory Harmonia! Philosophy.
All the pseudo-sciences also supported the women's rights
movement. Those with medical pretensions contributed to the
widening of women's sphere, specifically by pioneering the
training of women as medical practitioners. Women's rights also
Introduction
won the support of spiritualism's Andrew Jackson Davis, who

thundered against the duplicity of a society whose women were
"insulted with flattery; deceived by false attention, enslaved by
heartless promises." He urged woman to demand of men her
"Rights" and "a just representation of her interests."
Phrenology also served as a potent ally among those desiring
to widen women's sphere. The firm of Fowler and Wells on
Nassau Street published major feminist tracts, entertained their
authors, and endorsed the rights of women to enter not only
health-related fields as practitioners but all spheres of employment-from printing to legislation, engraving to law. Its proprietors even advocated full suffrage and equal pay for equal
work. 13 Phrenology's proponents with an eschatological bent
applied its optimistic doctrines, that the brain's faculties could
be modified through exercise and will, to just about every reform: health (including temperance, anti-tobacco, Bloomerism,
water-cure, and vegetarianism), penology; education, treatment
of the insane, human sexuality; religion, and even political
theory; the subject of my own essay. To liberals and conservatives alike, phrenology appeared to offer a solution to the problem vexing Jacksonian America, namely how men could be
made to act morally responsible with minimal external authorities to monitor their behavior. Phrenology seemed a logical
authority. Besides justifying democracy as a form of government
sanctioned by and consistent with the laws of nature, phrenology promised to identify man's self-governing and moral
faculties and to design ways of strengthening them in preparation for enlightened self-rule.
Daring flights of pseudo-scientific thought even ventured
into the area of human sexuality. Aspiz treats a subject that has
been scantily studied, the actual teaching on sex, marriage, and
parentage that ran through pseudo-scientific and reformist sex
and marriage manuals between 1830 and 1900. In these sources
he finds a pseudo-science of eugenics that bordered on a form of
scientific breeding aimed at creating the cultural ideal of the
well-sexed man and woman. For an age that is generally tagged
as prudish and fastidious in regard to sexual matters and the
transmission of sexual information, Aspiz uncovers a surprising
10
ARTHUR WROBEL
number of recurring "laws" and "principles" on all phases of

sexuality and to which conflicting parties commonly referred in
arguing their positions.
The different reforms responded in kind and welcomed these
powerful allies. The Grahamites not only trumpeted their brand
of vegetarianism but embraced as well phrenology and mesmerism.14 Their emphasis on dietary restraint and wholesomeness and cleanliness put them as well in sympathy with
the major tenets of hydropathy. Reformers as disparate as Amelia Bloomer, the woman's rights and temperance activist, and
Thomas Low Nichols and Mary Gove Nichols, followers of and
criers for just about every mid-century crusade, all espoused
phrenology and hydropathy. Robert Dale Owen, a labor reformer, politician, diplomat, and utopian was so impressed with
spiritualism that he published Footfalls on the Boundary of
Another World (1860), arguing that spirit communication with
another world was real. 15 His enthusiasm for spiritualism never
abated; in The Debatable Land between This World and the Next
(1871) he proposed spiritualism as a mediator between faith and
science. 16
The enlightened humanitarianism those pseudo-sciences
preached also caught the attention of several nineteenth-century utopian leaders. To many communitarians these new and
imposing disciplines offered fresh solutions and tenable alternatives to warrant further investigation. Bronson Alcott studied
physiognomy and metempsychosis, while his diagrams of mental powers which he often illustrated on a blackboard were no
more than a phrenological chart. 17 As a disciple of Andrew
Jackson Davis, Thomas Lake Harris dabbled in magnetic
trances before commencing his career at Mountain Cove; John
Humphrey Noyes of the Oneida Community consulted phrenological works before formulating his theories of Bible Communism and even Complex Marriage. Millerite Elder George
Storrs's explanation, after the last day failed to materialize, 18
that he was laboring under the delusion of mesmerism did not
deter other communitarians from studying mesmerism or spiritualism: Adin Ballou of Hopedale, Mary Gove and Thomas Low
Nichols of Modern Times, and John Murray Spear of Kiantone.
Introduction
11
After the failure of New Harmony, Robert Owen and his son
Robert Dale Owen converted to spiritualism, while Albert Brisbane became a practitioner in the 1850s. 19
In allying themselves with so many of the reform movements
and attracting the interest of various communitarians, several
of the pseudo-sciences came to absorb and then employ the
rhetoric common to millennia! tracts about the dawning of a
new age of peace, prosperity, and Christian morality. This drift
served them well-it blunted attacks of religious leaders by
appearing to complement standard religious belief about the
approaching Kingdom of God while simultaneously placing
these disciplines in a major tributary of the age's popular
cultural mainstream. Confidence that millennia! glory hovered
just over the horizon pervades the thought of pseudo-scientific
writers, each of them as immodestly certain as O.S. Fowler that
phrenology was bringing mankind closer to that blessed day:
"Then shall God be honored, and man be perfectly holy and
inconceivably happy, and earth be paradise."2o
A syncretic phenomenon transpired as well among the different pseudo-sciences themselves, no doubt because of their
similar teleologies and reforming passions. Mesmerism intrigued all of them, the seeming influence of mental concentration on physical actions shoring up their doctrine about
the unity of spirit and matter. Even homoeopathy's founder,
Hahnemann, was himself caught up in Europe's late eighteenthcentury mesmeric craze and believed it represented an alternative to his own healing theory. Later Hans Gram's homoeopathic circle in New York turned to works on phrenology and
mesmerism to be instructed more profoundly in the relationship between the body and soul. Homoeopaths were drawn as
well to Swedenborgianism, while some Transcendentalists
joined the latter in embracing homoeopathy, mesmerism, and
phrenology. Orson Fowler liked to travel by railroad, believing
that such journeys electrically charged his body. 21 Never very
bashful about generously appropriating materials that promised
fast profits, he developed "Phreno-Magnetism" and took over
publication of the Water-Cure Journal and Herald of Reforms in
1848. 22 William Wesselhoeft, a homoeopathic physician who
12
ARTHUR WROBEL
moved in Transcendentalist and reformist circles, espoused

temperance, gymnastics, and hydropathy.23
But by no means was the march of the pseudo-sciences in
nineteenth-century America an entirely triumphal procession.
It encountered considerable numbers of critics if not downright
scoffers. One was David Meredith Reese, a splenetic New York
physician. With The Humbugs of New York (1839) he hoped to
eradicate all the humbugs, both domestic and foreign, in a
powerful lightning bolt of derision and invective. He accused
them of practicing the pernicious doctrines of materialism and
fatalism, condemning phrenology for encouraging people to
accept their vices and delinquencies as merely constitutional in
origin. 24 That the accidental shape of a person's head, a clergyman similarly wrote in the Boston Investigator in 1835, was
said to determine a person's mind simply subverted religion,
morals, and, certainly, free agency. "Avoid phrenologists," he
thundered, "as worse than the French infidels."
Spiritualism came under attack as well, for both the support
it lent to various reforms and the threat it posed to orthodox
ecclesiastical authority. Clergymen looked askance at the theological liberalism spiritualism fostered-dissolving the personality of God and denying the Trinity, man's depravity; predestination, vicarious atonement, and even the final judgment. In
making mediumship available to women, spiritualism granted
them a form of spiritual leadership by giving them access to the
very powers that had hitherto been available only to the male
clergy. 25 The Protestant clergy also saw in spiritualism a heresy
that deluded followers into thinking that they were as capable of
divine inspiration as Christ, as well as a heretical recrudescence
of demonism. Many viewed spiritual evidences as Satanic in
origin. Predictably, the clergy stood aghast when Episcopal,
Presbyterian, and Methodist laypersons adopted spiritualist
views and the spiritualist quarterly Shekinah used a portrait of
Jesus as the frontispiece for its first volume in 1852. When one
of their own appeared to break ranks, the clergy struck back: it
brought heresy charges against Charles Beecher in 1863 for
holding twin beliefs in evolution and spiritualism. Exonerated
and undeterred, Beecher published Spiritual Manifestations in
Introduction
13
1879, in which he attempted to synthesize spiritualism, the

Bible, and liberal Christianity. 26
The response of the medical establishment to these disciplines, particularly since many of them were blossoming into
competitive medical sects, was hardly sanguine, either. With
good reason did the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal editorially grouse about the fashionable enthusiasms that kept
sweeping through the ranks of orthodox physicians. It noted,
rather dourly, that the very same practitioners who were currently "running after this hydropathic mummery" were last
year "equally full of transcendentalism, the year before of homoeopathy, the years before of animal magnetism, Grahamism,
phrenology. Next year they will be Fourierites, communists,
George Sandists, etc." 27 Oliver Wendell Holmes mounted perhaps the most classic and systematic attack on homoeopathy in
a two-part lecture before the Boston Society for the Diffusion of
Useful Knowledge in 1842. Holmes placed homoeopathy in the
company of other kindred delusions-the royal touch for
scrofula, weapon salve, tar water, and the Perkins tractor. (He
could have enlisted Mrs. Carlyle's concurrence. Her brief trial
with homoeopathy ended in disappointment and with the wail:
"Homoeopathy is an invention of the Father of Lies; I have tried
it, and found it wanting.") 28 Holmes predicted that homoeopathy would shortly expire, leaving only the "ultra Homoeopathist," who will"embrace some newer and if possible equally
extravagant doctrines; or he will stick to his colors and go down
with his sinking doctrine."2 9
The reasons for repudiating these pseudo-sciences, however,
were not any more in number or variety than those for embracing them. The New England Magazine in 1832 reported, on the
occasion of Johann G. Spurzheim's unexpected death in Boston,
that Spurzheim had had remarkable success in attracting converts to phrenology, "not only from among mere lecture-goers
and literary triflers, but from the most scientific and learned in
various professions: Physicians, Surgeons, and Lawyers, of great
present eminence." 30 The same could have been said about the
other pseudo-sciences. Innumerable public figures, whether out
of curiosity, hope, or belief, submitted to phrenological exam-
14
ARTHUR WROBEL
inations. Their results, more often than not, were promptly

published in the American Phrenologicalfoumal. P.T. Barnum,
the Siamese Twins, Amelia Bloomer, Brigham Young, Andrew
Carnegie, Thomas A. Edison, and Henry Ward Beecher.3 1 Spiritualism had no lesser claims to the eminent. William Lloyd
Garrison, George Ripley, Horace Greeley, Lydia Maria Child,
William Cullen Bryant, Rufus W. Griswold, James Fenimore
Cooper, George Bancroft, and John Roebling all attended seances, attracted no doubt as much by interest as bafflement.
Horace Greeley's wife attended a seance to contact her dead son
Pickie. 32 So pervasive was spiritualism's presence that George
Templeton Strong, the New York lawyer and diarist, wryly
lamented how "ex-judges of the Supreme Court, senators, clergymen, professors of physical sciences" were "lecturing and
writing books" on the spiritualist phenomenon. 33 Mesmerism's
advocates included Charles Dickens; Harriet Martineau, whose
skepticism about mesmeric healing was dispelled in 1844 when
she was successfully treated for polypous tumors and prolapsus
uteri; and Margaret Fuller, who was successfully treated mesmerically for headaches and spinal curvature. 34 Daniel Webster,
Henry Clay, and Sam Houston added their names to a petition
asking that John Dods deliver a series of lectures in the nation's
capital on mesmerism. 35 Other notables attended hydropathic
spas or underwent a course of water-cure: Harriet Beecher
Stowe, Catharine Beecher, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; Francis Parkman, and Fanny Fern. In England, George Henry Lewes
and George Eliot, the Carlyles, the Dickenses, T.B. Macaulay,
Darwin, Huxley, Ruskin, and Tennyson all tried water-cure for
varying lengths of time; Bulwer-Lytton remained its steadfast
champion. 36 Noted Americans who were homoeopathically
treated included: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; William Lloyd
Garrison, Julia Ward Howe, Louisa May Alcott, William Seward,
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, John D. Rockefeller, 37 and
Washington Irving, the subject of George Hendrick's essay.
Hendrick details a little-known chapter in Irving's life when,
beset by a number of health problems that interfered with his
work on the massive Life of Washington, the writer sought but
failed to find relief in homoeopathy.
Introduction
15
These various disciplines also attracted authors who believed

they found in them a creative lodestone that revealed knowledge unattainable by rational investigation or systematized
knowledge about human nature. Louisa May Alcott, William
Cullen Bryant, Stephen Crane, William Dean Howells, Henry
Wadsworth Longfello~ and James Russell Lowell submitted to
phrenological examinations, as did Walt Whitman. 38 Whitman's own highly favorable head-reading, given him by the great
American phrenologist Lorenzo Niles Fowler, provided the
basis for his conceptualization of the poet-prophet in Leaves of
Grass. Phrenology also shaped much of Whitman's thinking
about other subjects: education, America's millennia! future,
women's rights, sex, eugenics, even his mystical religious
views. 39 For Edgar Allan Poe phrenology represented a psychology useful for analyzing human nature in such short stories as
"The Imp of the Perverse" and "The Fall of the House of Usher."
He also wrote several mesmeric spoofs. 40 Melville used phrenology for humorous purposes as well-he phrenologized the
whale and favorably compared Queequeg's head to George
Washington's, "cannibalistically developed," of course. 4 1 Mark
Twain started his own study of phrenology at nineteen, submitted to head-readings on at least three occasions, and used its
vocabulary and concepts throughout his career, from The InnocentsAbroad(1869) to WhatisMan~ (1906). Though he used it at
times for humorous purposes, the phrenological notion of
u temperaments" shaped his self-concept, and he never gave up
investigating its claims that it offered a means of character
detection or psychological remedy. 42 The novels of George
Eliot, Bulwer-Lytton, and Charlotte Bronte, popular on both
sides of the Atlantic, show a working familiarity with phrenological terms and concepts. 4 3
The vocabulary of mesmerism, phrenology, physiognomy,
homoeopathy, and spiritualism, the concepts they proposed and
issues they raised, are woven into the plots, characterizations,
themes, and even methods of Hawthorne's fiction. The characterization of Westervelt in The Blithedale Romance, the homoeopathic ideas in the alchemical lore of Drs. Rappaccini, Aylmer,
Grimshawe, and Dolliver, the "spiritual voyeurism" that char-
16
ARTHUR WROBEL
acters such as Matthew Maule and Holgrave practice on innocent victims, and the revelation of complex psychic organizations in characters such as Hepzibah, Holgrave, and Clifford, all
testify to Hawthorne's simultaneous fascination with and repulsion from the artistic and philosophical potential these disciplines held. 44
Artists and sculptors were also cheered at the prospect of
creating works of art more esthetically pleasing, analytically
true, and scientifically accurate. As C. Thomas Walters shows,
American artists turned to discoveries about human character
in phrenology and physiognomy and to comparative anatomy to
develop a range of sculptural technology and to gain conceptual
inspiration.
Writers and thinkers, among them Coleridge and several
American Transcendentalists-James Freeman Clarke, Frederick Hedge, and Theodore Parker-read widely in these
pseudo-sciences which discoursed so knowingly about man's
place in nature. Though they never found in them a decisive
repudiation of Lockean epistemology or Hume's skepticism,
they originally turned to these pseudo-sciences, as did many of
their age, to learn about the relation of mind to body and about
the unity of man's mental and spiritual life with higher or
transcendent realms of being. 45
In short, these pseudo-sciences captured the imagination of a
wide spectrum of followers because of the relevance they had for
disciplines ranging from medicine and art to philosophy, and for
the way they resonated with major nineteenth-century cultural
assumptions and aspirations. This is especially evident, Robert
C. Fuller argues, in the case of mesmerism. Originally a system
of bodily and mental healing that discovered a stratum of mental life just below the threshold of ordinary consciousness,
mesmerism evolved into a discipline that successfully grafted a
pre-scientific psychology to many current religious and philosophical beliefs. While satisfying a yearning in Americans for a
non-scriptural source of spiritual enlightenment, American
mesmerists simultaneously recapitulated many of the themes
raised in the nation's revivalist tradition. Mesmerism also reaffirmed core American faiths-that the created universe was
Introduction
17
harmonious, that the material and spiritual realms were intimately connected, and that men could anticipate the complete
transformation of their physical and spiritual beings.
Such resonances eventually contributed to and even accelerated their own decline. Erected on rather shaky scientific foundations to begin with, they teetered more and more precariously
each time noisy enthusiasts added new deductions to existing
structures. What once passed for refreshing philosophical adaptability soon appeared to many as grotesque ploys by shameless
hucksters to stretch the fabric of their thought to fit either the
age's constantly changing cultural and intellectual configurations or their own ambitions.
Except for homoeopathy, the lives of the rest of the aforementioned pseudo-sciences did not extend much beyond the turn of
this century. The delicate balance each achieved during its own
heyday-among science, healing, aggressive entrepreneurship,
and entertainment-became upset, the latter two usurping and
in time replacing the former entirely. Dabblers and professionals alike were reluctant to weigh down their enthusiasms with
such leaden matters as establishing sounder methodologies, or
pursuing serious experimentation that reflected better ways of
testing data, or even adjusting their doctrines to accommodate
new discoveries in neuro-anatomy, physiology, and chemistry.
Instead, they lazily clung to a dubious Baconianism, readily
succumbing to the temptation of seeking only confirmation,
however specious, and ignoring contradictory or conflicting
evidence. Also, in the absence of any legitimate institutional
authority, proponents sought confirmation in popular rather
than scientific audiences, adjusting doctrines to meet the practical requirements or sensational expectations of uneducated
audiences.
The pseudo-sciences declined also because they gradually
lost two of their most attractive appeals-as alternate healing
therapies and as heralds of reform. As medical heresies they
flourished because of the public's well-founded skepticism
about the ability of traditional medicine to treat disease. But
with the emergence of an improved materia medica and healing
techniques, orthodox medicine regained the ascendancy, iron-
18
ARTHUR WROBEL
ically profiting because it absorbed, if not appropriated outright,

principles of healing from the very medical heresies it so often
publicly debunked. Homoeopathic therapeutics, for instance,
contributed significantly to the formation of modern medicine.
Homoeopathy evolved new applications of medicinal substances and, according to its system of pharmacology; developed
new drugs and medicines that orthodox medicine eventually
assimilated into its own materia medica. 46 The collapse of
reform during the post-Civil War period also precipitated their
decline. The war's reality appeared to mock the earlier faith that
individual moral regeneration was possible or that any of the
newly emerging economic, urban, or political problems could
be solved in any way other than legislatively or institutionally.
The ancient dream of renovating man and his institutions
according to the eternal laws upon which nature and society
were said to rest seemed delusive.
Notes--------------------------------------------1. George H. Daniels, American Science in the Age of fackson (New

York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1968), p. 63. For a complete account of
American Baconianism, see chap. 3, "The Reign of Bacon in America."
2. William G. Rothstein, American Physicians in the Nineteenth
Century (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1972). For an account
of the rise, theory, and spread of homoeopathy in nineteenth-century
America, see chap. 8, "The Rise of Homoeopathy."
3. Raymond E. Fancher, Pioneers of Psychology (New York: Norton,
1979), pp. 43-51.
4. Thomas H. Leahey, A History of Psychology: Main Currents in
Psychological Thought (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1980),
pp. 156-59.
5. The Occult in America, ed. Howard Kerr and Charles L. Crow
(Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press, 1983), p. 2.
6. Ernest Isaacs, "The Fox Sisters and American Spiritualism," The
Occult in America, p. 80.
7. R. Laurence Moore, In Search of White Crows: Spiritualism,
Parapsychology, and American Culture (New York: Oxford Univ. Press,
1977), pp. 9-11.
8. Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo
Emerson, ed. Edward Waldo Emerson, 12 vols. (Boston, 1903-1904),
Introduction
19
10:337-38. Cited in Taylor Stoehr, Hawthorne's Mad Scientists:

Pseudoscience and Social Science in Nineteenth-Century Life and
Letters (Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1978), p. 25.
9. Joseph F. Kett, The Formation of the American Medical Profession: The Role of Institutions, 1780-1860 (New Haven: Yale Univ.
Press, 1968), pp. 132-34.
10. J. Stillson Judah, The History and Philosophy of the Metaphysical Movements in America (Philadelphia: Westminster Press,
1967), pp. 151-52.
11. Moore, Metaphysical Movements, p. 12.
12. Ronald G. Walters, American Reformers: 1815-1860 (New York:
Hill and Wang, 1978), p. 170.
13. Andrew Jackson Davis, The Great Harmonia (Boston: Sanborn,
Carter, & Bazin, 1855), 2:199. Madeleine B. Stem, Heads and Headlines: The Phrenological Fowlers (Norman: Univ. of Oklahoma Press,
1971 ), pp. 165-67.
14. Kett, American Medical Profession, p. 125.
15. Isaacs, "Fox Sisters," p. 96.
16. Howard Kerr, Mediums, and Spirit-Rappers, and Roaring Radicals: Spiritualism in American Literature, 1850-1900 (Urbana: Univ. of
Illinois Press, 1973), p. 109.
17. John B. Wilson, "Phrenology and the Transcendentalists,"
American Literature 28 (May 1956): 222.
18. Stoehr, Hawthorne's Mad Scientists, p. 28.
19. Ibid., pp. 254-55.
20. Orson Squire Fowler, Hereditary Descent: Its Laws and Facts
Illustrated and Applied to the Improvement of Mankind (New York:
Fowler and Wells, 1843), p. 24.
21. Kett, American Medical Profession, pp. 141, 150, 154, 146.
22. Stem, Heads and Headlines, p. 51.
23. Kett, American Medical Profession, p. 154.
24. John D. Davies, Phrenology: Fad and Science: A 19th-Century
American Crusade (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1955), p. 69.
25. Ibid., p. 68; Moore, White Crows, pp. 40-69, passim; Mary Ferrell
Bednarowski, "Women in Occult America," The Occult in America,
pp. 180-82.
26. Moore, White Crows, pp. 44-46; Jon Butler, "Dark Ages of American Occultism," The Occult in America, p. 72; Kerr, Mediums, p. 14.
27. Kett, American Medical Profession, pp. 154-55.
28. Bruce Haley, The Healthy Body and Victorian Culture (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1978), p. 13.
29. Martin Kaufmann, Homeopathy in America: The Rise and Fall
20
ARTHUR WROBEL
of a Medical Heresy (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1971), pp.

35-41.
30. "The Late Dr. Spurzheim," New England Magazine (Jan. 1833):
40.
31. A Phrenological Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century Americans,
compiled by Madeleine B. Stem (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press,
1982).
32. Kerr, Mediums, p. 6.
33. As quoted in Isaacs, "Fox Sisters," p. 79.
34. Stoehr, Hawthorne's Mad Scientists, pp. 23, 46.
35. Robert C. Fuller, Mesmerism and the American Cure of Souls
(Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 1982), p. 70.
36. Harry B. Weiss and Howard R. Kemble, The Great American
Water-Cure Craze (Trenton, N.J.: Past Times Press, 1967) pp. 182,
214-15; Haley, Healthy Body, p. 16.
37. JohnS. Haller, Jr., American Medicine in Transition, 1840-1910
(Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press, 1981), p. 117.
38. Stem, Phrenological Dictionary.
39. Ibid., pp. 99-124, passim; Harold Aspiz, "Educating the Kosmos:
'There Was a Child Went Forth,'" American Quarterly 18 (winter
1966): 655-66; "Unfolding the Folds," Walt Whitman Review 12(Dec.
1966): 81-87; and Arthur Wrobel, "Whitman and the Phrenologists,"
PMLA 891Jan. 1974): 17-23.
40. Davies, Phrenology, pp. 120-22; Stem, Heads and Headlines, pp.
73-7.
41. Harold Aspiz, "Phrenologizing the Whale," Nineteenth-Century Fiction 23(June 1968): 18-27; and Tyros Hillway, "Melville's Use
of Two Pseudo-Sciences," Modern Language Notes 64 (March 1949):
145-50.
42. Davies, Phenology, p. 120.
43. Alan Gribben, "Mark Twain, Phrenology and the 'Temperaments': A Study of Pseudoscientific Influence," American Quarterly
24(March 1972): 45-68.
44. Stoehr, Hawthorne's Mad Scientists, passim.
45. Wilson, "Phrenology and the Transcendentalists," pp. 220-25,
passim.
46. Harris L. Coulter, "Homoeopathic Influences in NineteenthCentury Allopathic Therapeutics," Journal of the American Institute
of Homeopathy65, no. 3(Sept. 1972): 139-81; and65, no. 4(Dec.1972):
207-44.
TAYLOR STOEHR--------------------
2. Robert H. Collyer's
Technology of the Soul
Back in 1958 two computer scientists could write: "There are

now in the world machines that think, that learn and that
create. Moreover, their ability to do these things is going to
increase rapidly until-in the visible future-the range of problems they can handle will be coextensive with the range to
which the human mind has been applied. 11
The blurb for a book published in 1983 goes further: "Are
computers alive? Yes! and today they truly represent an emerg
ing family of living species in the world-that is the startling
argument of this landmark book. 11 1
At funeral services I recently attended, the minister (of no
minor sect) encouraged our faith in life after death by pointing
to everyday phenomena just as miraculous as resurrection: a
few drops of a liquid extracted from deep in the earth, and our
car engines come to life; a flick of the switch, and our beloved
president materializes before our eyes, transported thousands of
miles, in full color. Why should not this clay rise again?
Others believe that science will soon do away with mortality
itself; our species will not suffer by comparison with its selfrepairing and reconstituting electronic cousins. A recent survey
of research into the biochemistry of longevity quotes one enthusiastic fund raiser as saying, "We are either the last generation to
die or the first one to live forever. 112
I cannot recite such crudities without being reminded of the
22
TAYLOR STOEHR
tradition, European in its origins with E. T.A. Hoffman and Mary

Shelley, but most at home in America, from its early masters
Poe and Hawthorne through its near burlesque in B movies a
hundred years later-the gothic tradition of the mad scientist,
whose Faustian hubris destroys the strongest bonds of kin and
love, threatens the whole human community, and finally ends
in despairing gnashing of teeth and, especially in modem versions, self-annihilation.
What would Hawthorne have made of these current blasphemies, new elixirs of life and machines that think? We like to
regard such developments as throwbacks to the alchemical necromancers that people his stories. One can almost see them in
their robes and funny hats and wands. The stalwarts of modem
science are not like that; they are the anonymous researchers
pictured in the ads, who promise to save our environment and
keep the consumer economy viable. Yet is theirs not the same
deadly prescription Dr. Rappaccini concocted, however much
the lab coats and technology have changed? Teamwork and
knowhow; the commercial assures us, will find new sources of
energy, end tooth decay, and cure mortality itself. There is no ill
in nature that will not yield to scientific method-that is the
message.
In the following pages I am not dealing with the whole issue
of mad science, the doomsday technology that has given us such
lessons as DDT, Chemobyl, and Star Wars, still less with the
mixed blessings to traditional human community and intelligence of those cultural Trojan horses TV and the automobile.
My focus is on one man and his peculiarly revealing career in
what I have called the Technology of the Soul, the nineteenth
century's frantic effort to find a modem, scientific way of understanding-and controlling-individual human consciousness.
My representative pseudo-scientist's closest brush with fame
grew out of the "discovery" of anesthesia in 1846. He was one of
the minor claimants to the honor-and to the $100,000 reward
debated in Congress-for developing a practical means of
painless surgery. The chief contestants were a Boston dentist,
William T.G. Morton, who demonstrated the technique in the
operating room of Massachusetts General Hospital; Horace
Robert H. Collyer's Technology of the Soul
23
Wells, another dentist, who had been Morton's partner and who
had started things off with the idea of using laughing gas, nitrous oxide, in pulling teeth; and Charles T. Jackson, a wellknown Boston scientist who gave Morton advice about how to
administer the sulphuric ether he substituted for Wells's nitrous
oxide. (Before any of them, Crawford W. Long, a country doctor
in the Deep South, had used ether for a few operations, until his
neighbors began to shun him.)
Who really deserved the credit? Was it the idea of painless
surgery that counted, or the method? And which method, nitrous oxide or sulphuric ether? Or was it the public demonstration of the method? The squabble left them ruined menMorton a pauper, Wells a chloroform addict and suicide, Jackson
locked away in an asylum. Only Long, who never pushed his
claim, died in obscurity rather than misery.
A generation later the medical profession was still raking
these coals. In 1870 the London Lancet published the first
"definitive" history of the controversy, attempting to settle the
issue of originality once and for all. 3 After distributing praise
among the principal contenders, the Lancet writer surprisingly
came up with a new candidate, who "is to our minds the true
pioneer after all-the man who ran first, and beckoned and
called, however oddly, others to follow, with so much effect that
a few followed at once, and many afterwards. "4
History has not accepted the decision of the Lancet, though it
was the foremost medical journal of its day, because the man
proposed as the true pioneer was not an orthodox scientist. His
case for priority rested on the most blatant quackery. Who was
this man? Why was his science pseudo while that of Morton,
Wells, and Jackson was truet
Robert Hanham Collyer, M.D., was an Englishman, probably
born on the Channel Island of Jersey, though neither his origin
nor his end is certain. 5 He had some medical training at the
University of London in the mid-1830s, under Dr. John Elliotson, England's first advocate of mesmerism; 6 even before that
he seems to have studied in Paris, where he met the famous
prophet of phrenology Johann Gaspar Spurzheim. 7
Collyer had a Yankee temperament. His scientific approach
was that of the jack-of-all-trades; he dabbled in everything but
Fig. 2.1. Robert H. Collyer, from the title page of Lights and Shadows
of American Life (Boston, 1843).
25
was too volatile for serious research. It was not surprising that
the Lancet writer mistook him for an American, characterized
by "impetuous perception, impulsive action, open nature, and
unrestrainable fluency of speech." 8 Even his American admirers spoke of his "burning enthusiasm" and "dauntless energy," though he betrayed his British origins in being "somewhat
peculiar in his public discourses, and somewhat eccentric in his
general character."9
These traits might not make a good scientist, but they made
an excellent pseudo-scientist. Publicity was more important
than methodology for these hothouse doctrines that bloomed
overnight and wilted fast. Collyer's claim for a share in the
discovery of inhalation anesthesia depended on just such
pseudo-scientific talents.
On June 15, 1836, Collyer disembarked in New York Cit~
where he immediately set up as a popular lecturer. 10 At the
university he had learned something about microscopes, and
having brought one with him, he offered to reveal"The Wonders
of the Microscopic World" to all who had the price of admission.11
Friends soon urged him to take advantage of his acquaintance
with the late Dr. Spurzheim, whose tour a few years earlier had
made phrenology fashionable with Americans. 12 It would not
take much study to memorize the phrenological charts that
located the thirty-four faculties and propensities on the skull;
after that, it was more a matter of eloquence than of knowledge.
Encouraged by "the success that had attended several private
examinations" (like palm readings, of the cranium), Collyer left
his microscopic wonders for the more lucrative phrenological
lecture circuit.
He said that he was not in the field "for any pecuniary
benefit," and in fact he often lectured without a fee-but that
was because there was more money to be made in private consultations. This sharp practice earned him the contempt of the
world-famous Scots phrenologist George Combe, whose own
itinerary happened to cross Collyer's in 1839. There were three
phrenological lecturers billed for Hartford on the same night:
Combe was charging $3 a ticket for his series of twelve lectures;
26
TAYLOR STOEHR
a Mr. Young promised to cover the subject more economically in

only two lectures, enlivened by magic lantern slides; but Collyer stole away both audiences by advertising that he would
unfold the whole science in a single night, free ("and might be
consulted at his hotel as to character, &c." ).13
Collyer soon realized that the essence of his calling was
advertising. It helped to be able to refer to his "personal friend"
Spurzheim, and he never failed to take advantage of the most
scraping acquaintance, writing letters to celebrities like
Charles Dickens just so he could print their repli~s. 14 A typical
pseudo-scientist, he had his own magazine in which to do so. He
also wrote his own Manual of Phrenology; which he sold after his
lectures and also distributed, with its charts personally annotated for the client during private consultations, using up four
editions in as many years. 1 s
During the late 1830s Collyer was one of dozens of such
wandering showmen-scientists, fingering skulls in Lancaster,
Harrodsburg, Baltimore, Louisville, Columbia, Savannah, all
the way to New Orleans, 16 where his father, also an emigrant,
was running a distillery. 17 This lecturing from town to town was
hom of revivalism and circuit riding, though now the subjects
were secular-not merely phrenology but all the latest scientific doctrines-geology, electricity, chemistry. Charles Lyell's
audiences rivaled both Combe's and Dickens's when he toured
the U.S. during the same period.
Footloose as he was, Collyer found time for "graduate work,"
as we call it, to supplement his training in London. He took a
"quickie" degree at the Berkshire Medical College in Pittsfield,
Massachusetts. 18 But that was mere ornament; like most
pseudo-scientists, he had his true laboratory on the stage where
he performed. Collyer made his first scientific discovery during
his phrenological travels in the South. Each plantation owner
was asked to point out the most musical of his slaves, and after
examining some three hundred natural minstrels, Collyer announced that he was moving the organ for Tune up an inch from
where Gall and Spurzheim had located it on the temple, squeezing Humor and Ideality but leaving its old spot vacant for an
organ Collyer invented to fill the gap, Proper Names. (Tune, by
27
the way; was to be found large not only in Negroes, but also "in
Handel, Mozart, Van Weber, Gluck, Rossini, Malibran, and in all
singing birds." )1 9
Just before graduation from medical school Collyer was introduced to the new craze that was beginning to steal phrenology's thunder-mesmerism, or animal magnetism. 20 Soon
he was giving lectures on the subject, using his own little
brother, who joined him from New Orleans, as a somnambulist.21
Mesmerism too could be profitably divided into lecture and
private consultation. Instead of character readings the animal
magnetist offered medical diagnosis: when he put little Frederick into the clairvoyant state, the newly credentialed Dr.
Collyer had his own X-ray. He also treated headache and various
nervous disorders by direct magnetic applications.
Public appearances consisted in exhibiting the further range
of clairvoyant perception. One night, for instance, Collyer's
performance was capped by this convincing experiment:
A well known citizen of Boston, Mr. R.T.S. wished to be put in correspondence with one of my subjects .... He took the subject mentally to
his house in _ _ street, South End, and asked him a number of
questions respecting the disposition of the furniture, the rooms, &c.
&c. to all of which he obtained correct answers, and so communicated
to the audience. He then took the subject to his bedroom. "Who do you
see now?" asked the gentleman.
"A young lady dressed in her night-clothes-she wears a ruffled cap,
and a white gown-upon the table is a lamp and a white ewer."
"Admirable!" said the gentleman, taking out his watch, "that lady is
my wife, and it is just the time that she generally goes to bed"; then
turning to the subject, he said, "do you see anything more?"
"Yes!" replied the subject, "I see a young man dressed in black, he is
very good-looking, and wears a pair of black whiskers and an imperial
upon his chin!"
"Mercy on us!" exclaimed the old gentleman, turning pale, and
dropping the hand of the subject, "who can be there with my wife!
Really, Doctor, I must go home and see."22
In full flower as a pseudo-scientific celebrity; Collyer missed

no opportunity to enliven his act. Audiences would tire of
28
TAYLOR STOEHR
imaginary tours of private homes, no matter how amusing a few

of them might tum out. It was necessary to provide something
to watch on the stage itself. It was now that he laid the basis for
his claim to a share in the discovery of anesthesia. Collyer added
to his routine a dramatic demonstration of his power to control
the perceptions of his subjects: their very teeth could be yanked
from their jaws without their knowing it.23
Had that been all there was to it, Collyer would not have had
much to say for himself in the anesthesia debate. All the mesmerists had this trick in their repertoire, and the teeth extracted
in front of wincing audiences in 1842 would have made a sizable
pile. 24 But Collyer went further. He also used "stimulating and
narcotic vapors" to achieve the same painless results. Collyer's
drugs were merely alcohol and opium, the old standbys; but that
was not the issue as he saw it later. 25 Perhaps he was right. The
question is, was he methodically experimenting with different
kinds of painkillers, and thus drawing public attention for the
first time to the possibility of a science of anesthetics? He
claimed that both Wells and Morton had attended his lectures in
the early 1840s and stolen their experiments with laughing gas
and ether from him. 26 (Wells actually admitted getting the idea
of using nitrous oxide from an itinerant lecturer on popular
science-not Collyer however, but Samuel Colt, who made a
living demonstrating laughing gas before inventing his famous
revolver.)2 7 Supposing that some such project was in Collyer's head, the
writer for the Lancet wondered, why did he himself not take the
next step and proceed systematically with his idea? "As it was,
after throwing out a fine suggestion, he virtually deserted it
himself, as if he did not himself see the whole of its extensive
application and importance."28
It was true. Collyer's use of mesmerism as a painkiller involved neither a discovery nor a recognition; he simply did not
have the scientific habit of mind that sees phenomena in their
systematic relations. It was characteristic of his harum-scarum
manner of thought that the idea for his "stimulating and narcotic vapors" came, not from Professor Turner's chemistry lectures at University College, where Collyer himself had been put
29
to sleep by a whiff of ether, 29 but from his father's distillery,

where in 1839 a Negro slave who had been "sniffing" under the
canvas cover of a vat of rum passed out and fell ten feet, dislocating his hip. Collyer reduced the dislocation, which was severe,
without causing "Bob" any pain, and that was his first experiment in anesthesia-bizarre enough, but really no different
from the experience of many surgeons who got their patients
drunk before operating.3o
Collyer never put two and two together. The point of performing painless dentistry during his lectures, sometimes by mesmerism, sometimes by drugs, was not to advance the idea of
anesthesia at all, but to offer a pseudo-scientific hypothesis
about the physiology of trance. He called this "the magnetic or
congestive state of the brain/' and explained that it could be
produced not only by mesmerism but also "by mental excitement, accompanied with musuclar action; the inhaling of narcotic and stimulating vapors; ... or by the will of the individual
himsel." 31
So much for Collyer as a scientist. Yet as a pseudo-scientistthat is, as a publicist of unsubstantiated scientific fantasies-he
probably did, unknowingly, contribute something to the discovery of anesthesia. Perhaps his claim is best argued in the words
of anesthesia's most vehement opponent, the famous surgeon
Fran~ois Magendie, who tried to prevent the French Academy of
Sciences from honoring any of the discoverers: "I consider that
the new method conflicts both with sound reason and with
moral responsibility. Behind the whole matter lies this, that
certain European doctors have been led astray by an American
advertiser, and are now trying to enlist the Academy of Sciences
in the puffery." 32 Magendie had William Morton in mind, who
had taken out a patent and was advertising his "Letheon" apparatus at home and abroad; but it was Collyer who was the expert
in puffery, and who, as the Lancet put it, "beckoned and called,
however oddly, others to follow." 33
What do we learn from this tawdry story? First of all, let us
recognize that this is not the founding of a science but merely a
technology, and that none of its initiators were serious scien-
30
TAYLOR STOEHR
tists, only indifferent practitioners of dentistry and medicine,

crafts barely out of the hands of barbers and apothecaries. The
practical consequences have been enormous but not really scientific, just as the discovery itself owed less to chemistry than
to hearsay, ballyhoo, and luck.
Nonetheless we are obviously reluctant to call anesthesia an
achievement of pseudo-science-not so much, I think, because
of our distaste for its vulgarities, as because of a need to buttress
faith in our own technological society: if it works, it's science; if
it's pseudo-science, it can't possibly work.
But the truth is that science and pseudo-science were-arecloser than we like to think. The history of anesthesia is not the
only example of a technological breakthrough propelled by
pseudo-science. Much of what we now think of as orthodoxy,
especially in social sciences like psychology, was actually taking shape in this welter of isms and ologies. A majority of the
early authorities on insanity-the asylum superintendents who
founded the American Psychiatric Association-were phrenologists. This does not mean that phrenology simply evolved
into psychiatry; but phrenological concepts of brain function
certainly influenced men like Isaac Ray and Amariah Brigham,
who accordingly assumed that mental aberration always had
physiological concomitants; insanity was a disease of the body,
like any other, and therefore treatable. This was a radical view in
the nineteenth century.34
Moreover, the norms of behavior were assumed to fit neatly
within the system of propensities found on phrenological
charts, and not only by asylum superintendents but also by
prison wardens, reformers of fallen women, and philanthropists
of every description. Such an authoritative codification of faculty-psychology had a profound effect on popular notions of
human nature. 35 To take a single striking example, the phrenological distinction between Amativeness and Propagativeness was used by the early advocates of birth control to justify
contraception. 36
The influence of pseudo-science tended to be social or medical rather than purely scientific, though even here there were
important contributions. After all, the phrenologists were right
31
in their guess about the localization of brain function, and Gall's

anatomical technique is now recognized as epoch-making,
though the misguided theory of bumps prevented his followers
from going any farther physiologically. 37
Compared to their orthodox rivals, the pseudo-sciences were
often more advanced or enlightened. Nineteenth-century medical orthodoxy (called "allopathy") never proved itself better able
to heal the sick than hydropathy, homoeopathy, Thomsonianism, and so on, although the A.M.A. finally succeeded in
squeezing them out. On the contrary, the homoeopathists were
the first to condemn the huge allopathic doses of calomel and
opium, and the bleeding and blistering which killed so many
patients. 38 Their own prescriptions, diluted to "potencies" that
would not cover a pinpoint, may have served only as placebos,
but the homoeopathists were ahead of everyone else in recognizing the need for an experimentally derived pharmacopoeia, even
if it was full of "microscopic sugar-plums," as Oliver Wendell
Holmes put it. 39 Similarly, the hydropathists were the first to
demonstrate the importance of diet, rest, and exercise in the
prevention and cure of disease; their health spas were the best
the nineteenth century had to offer.
The fact is, although science must finally be systematic to be
true, its acquisitions, and especially its applications, do not
always come in an orderly way. Science must make room for
novelty, and relinquish a system when it can no longer bear the
weight of its anomalies and exceptions. This is the loophole that
gave the pseudo-scientists their place in the scientific enterprise. Their enthusiasms drew attention to phenomena that
could not be explained according to orthodox theories.
Even the best scientists knew next to nothing about the
problems of human consciousness that many of the pseudoscientists were interested in. The old religious psychology had
broken down, and an extremely mechanistic view of experience
and behavior was taking its place, seen, for example, in the
development of statistics, the nosology of mental disease, and
the anatomical work of the early neurosurgeons. Finally, as the
behaviorists drew their net tight around whatever in mental life
could be measured, William James would reach back to Jon-
32
TAYLOR STOEHR
a than Edwards's Freedom of the Will for a fresh start on spiritual

questions.
Meanwhile the pseudo-scientists muddled through, applying
their vocabulary of fluids and mediums and congestions to
processes of mind that are spiritual. It was part of the general
tendency of nineteenth-century science. While Faraday was
hacking away at the "empty" Newtonian universe of forces
acting on bodies completely without material agency, the animal magnetists thought they had discovered the ultimate medium of human will, a universal energy that passed, like electricity or light, between mind and mind, explaining all the
mysterious phenomena of mesmerism and clairvoyance, and
opening up the possibility of communication with the spiritual
realm inhabited by the disembodied.
Again Collyer was in the vanguard.
One night Collyer found himself magnetizing a difficult subject, who would not obey his will. Someone in the audience
suggested that he try magnetizing the phrenological organ of
Benevolence, whereupon the subject immediately became
pliant and cooperative. This was the birth of phrenomagnetism,
a pseudo-scientific amalgam that not only harmonized two sets
of doctrines, thereby proving their validity, but also gave rise to
new speculations about the sources of mesmeric power-perhaps "the vital principle" itsel. 4 0
Animal magnetism was a form of electricity-that seemed
obvious; if Galvani could produce reflexes in a frog's leg with his
crude apparatus, why not the magnetist, passing his positively
charged fingers over the negatively receptive cranium of the
somnambulist? Now that there was a means of artificially exciting the organs of the mind one by one, their locations could
also be conclusively settled-just as neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield was able to determine the functions of the cortex when,
two generations later, he stimulated it with his electrodes.
Then, in a development that perfectly illustrates everything
that was wrong with pseudo-science, the phrenomagnetists
suddenly realized that they had not only authenticated all the
organs charted by Gall and Spurzheim, but had found a tech-
33
nique for discovering a whole series of new ones. Dread of

Death, Desire for Money; Love of Stimulants, Boasting, Sarcasm, Love of Pets, Desire for Seeing Ancient Places, Perfection,
Gratitude, etc., etc.-soon the skull was so crowded with new
faculties that their locations would no longer fit on the cranial
maps published in the handbooks. 41
There was a race to see who could stake out the available
space first, and Collyer soon had several rivals for the distinction of having discovered phrenomagnetism. In order to be
famous like Gall or Mesmer, it was necessary to have one's own
pseudo-science. The discovery of a few new organs was not
enough: anyone could add a gargoyle or two to the edifice; the
glory belonged to the architect.42
In the contest that ensued Collyer fought for his priority with
the same relish he later displayed in the anesthetic controversy.
He accused one of his rivals (LaRoy Sunderland, ex-preacher and
author of the phrenological list I have just quoted) not only of
stealing his idea but of making up new organs just as he fancied:
"This LRS has new organs for love of cold water, love of strong
drink, organs of suavity; organs of molasses and water, ginslings, hot whiskey punches, organs for eating Bologna sausages, organs for sucking molasses, mush and milk, organs for
kicking foot-ball, for knocking down watchmen, organs for
kissing women, organs for jealousy; organs for swindling the
public out of their money, organs for claiming certain discoveries in Mesmerism, that the individual never thought of, &c.
&c."43
The satire is effective until one remembers Collyer's own
discoveries of Tune and Proper Names. At least he never
claimed to have located them phrenomagnetically. In fact, perhaps as a result of his interchange with Sunderland, Collyer now
began to criticize phrenology as "a glaring absurdity; an insult to
the intelligence of an enlightened public." He even recanted
phrenomagnetism (while still claiming priority in it!) because
he found he could get the same results, so long as his subjects
did not know the phrenological charts, by magnetizing their
elbows. 44
One reason that Collyer was so willing to renounce phre-
TAYLOR STOEHR
34
A: The operator, duectmg the Image of his thoughts to pomt C.

B: The recipient receivmg the reflected Image on his bram from pomt C
C: The angle AC bemg equal to the angle CB.
Fig. 2.2. Collyer's "bowl of molasses" experiment. From Collyer's

Psychography (Philadelphia, 1843).
nomagnetism is that he had now discovered still another

pseudo-science, this one entirely his own, which he christened
"psychography." It was, he hoped, his ticket to fame. He had
found the fundamental scientific explanation for all the phenomena of telepathy and clairvoyance. Collyer argued that the
trance travels of somnambulists were really a form of mind
reading, effected by photographic principles: "I was obliged to
embody the image[s] ... in my own mind, before they could be
recognized by the recipients; whose brain during the congestive
state was so sentient that the impression was conveyed to the
mind similar to the photographic process of Daguerre." 45 Collyer now added the "bowl of molasses experiment" to his act.
Someone from the audience would sit opposite his somnambulist, gazing into a bowl of molasses ("any other dark fluid will
answer"), and the mental images of the one were reflected into
the mesmerized consciousness of the other. In the illustrations
35
for his new pamphlet the lines of psychographic force were

dotted in with comic-book literalness. 46
Both phrenomagnetism and psychography were attempts to
explore the physiological basis of psychic life. It was hard for the
pseudo-scientists to accept Benjamin Franklin's opinion, given
as a member of the famous French committee investigating
Mesmer, that the magnetic phenomena could be explained by
"the excited imagination of the patient, and by the involuntary
instinct of imitation." 47 But both Franklin and the mesmerists
missed the real point-that the phenomena were all the more
extraordinary when considered as the effects of mere suggestion. At bottom the mesmerists agreed with the orthodox scientists of the Bailly Committee, that only what could be measured
was worth studying. Mesmerism and phrenology were doomed
as sciences of mind because they neglected the interesting questions they had their fingers on, questions of faith and will, desire
and attention, consciousness and unconsciousness.
Whether or not Collyer's motives were what we would call
"scientific" in exposing the absurdities of phrenology and phrenomagnetism, the upshot was that orthodox pseudo-scientists
began to treat him as a renegade. Sunderland retaliated in The
Magnet: "We have now before us, letters and affidavits of respectable persons, in which he is charged with conduct the most
infamous. Indeed, we have just received a letter from a respectable female whom he had been in the habit of magnetizing, in
Boston, in which she charges him with deception, falsehood,
profanity, and an attempt to defraud her; and, also, with extreme
cruelty towards her while in the magnetic state." 4 8
Orson Fowler himself, the dean of phrenology in America,
accused Collyer of being "utterly destitute of moral principle."
When Collyer countered with a libel suit, Fowler advertised for
witnesses to testify to his "having committed immoralities or
crimes, great or small, or. .. dirty deeds, or his having committed
seduction, or adultery, or having even gone off without paying
his debts." 4 9
Here we begin to see the underside of pseudo-science.
Whether or not Collyer was the villain Fowler and Sunderland
36
TAYLOR STOEHR
said he was, such rumors circulated freely about most of the

itinerant mesmerists. It was bound to happen in a calling that
combined traveling salesman and mad scientist. In his Mesmeric Magazine Collyer had boasted of curing a girl of infatuation, at her mother's request and without the patient's knowledge;50 could he not just as easily transfer her affections to
himself? This possibility was the theme of many stories and
novels based on the mesmeric phenomena, including the darker
corners of Hawthorne's House of the Seven Gables and The
Blithedale Romance. George Lippard's sensationalist Quaker
City depicted an entire harem of sexy somnambulists drawn
from "the best homes" all over the world by an irresistible
magnetist. 51
In short, the public image of the pseudo-scientist was Janusfaced: Collyer might be seen as he no doubt saw himself, a
dedicated scientist, never hesitating to question even his own
earlier enthusiasms, or as his rivals saw him, a dissolute fraud
and opportunist. Reports about him were so antithetical as to
lead a modern historian of phrenology to posit two Robert H.
Collyers, the one a respectable visiting scientist from England,
the other an impostor following his trail and trading on his
reputation. 52 The conjecture is not so far-fetched: Collyer's
enemy Sunderland, for instance, complained that someone
"stole the entire name, advertisement, hand-bills, and testimonials" of his professional identity, "for a course of lectures on
Pathetism." 53 Some of these people changed their names every
time they changed pseudo-sciences-perhaps, as Fowler hinted,
to escape paying their old hotel bills. But finally there is no hard
evidence for the twin Collyer theory; it is more reasonable to
assume that he had as many public faces as audiences wanted to
see.
Like media personalities today, the pseudo-scientists were
fantasy creations of the popular imagination. Mesmerism in
particular was a catalyst for all sorts of cultural mythologizing.
The best place to see this is in the works of the popular writers,
especially Poe and Hawthorne.
Poe actually knew Collyer; they met at one of revival
preacher William Miller's mass meetings in the spring of 1843,
when the Millerites were expecting the Last Judgment at any
37
moment.54 Poe and Collyer, both students of the power of the

imagination, were naturally intrigued by this new metamorphosis of the evangelical impulse, twisting its way toward later
science-and-religion sects like Christian Science and Scientology. Obviously there was something like mass hypnosis at
work; when the end of the world failed to materialize, one of the
disillusioned leaders announced that the whole movement was
nothing but mesmerism. 55
Poe probably knew as much pseudo-science as Collyer, while
Collyer was equally adept at keeping an audience spellbound.
They must have had much to say to one another. Collyer's
Psychography was not yet out (he was seeing it through the press
at the time), but he might have given Poe Chauncey Townshend's Facts in Mesmerism, which had an appendix reporting his
own experiments. 56 Collyer had presented a copy to Poe's friend
John Neal soon after its publicationY Somehow Poe obtained
this book, because he used it extensively in writing a series of
mesmeric hoax-tales not long after his meeting with Collyer. 58
The most successful of these-as hoax if not as literaturewas "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar," an account of
suspended animation achieved by mesmerism. This gruesome
fancy was widely reprinted in the mid-1840s, when readers were
eager to swallow whatever wonders a pseudo-scientist might
dangle in front of them. Many took Poe's fabrication hook, line,
and sinker, the mesmerists most greedily of all. An English
expert, Thomas South, was thoroughly gulled by the
announcement lately made by Mr. Poe ... of a dying man magnetised by
him in articule mortis, and though inevitable death did certainly supervene, yet there in his chamber and in testimony of a crowd of witnesses,
for seven months consecutively lay the undemagnetised corpse, and
when questioned by the magnetiser Poe, in a sepulchral voice gave
utterance that he was dead, dead, and should not be disturbed; and then,
when at the intervention of others, Poe made the demagnetising passes,
the outward body, the whole perfect form instantly dissolved into one
shapeless mass of intolerable corruption. This is well and publicly
attested, yet few even of the faithful will believe, though one spoke
from the dead. But be it true or false to this generation, "Ye shall see
greater things than these."59
38
TAYLOR STOEHR
Poe of course was gratified by such reactions. Even more

delectable was the response of his friend and informant Collyer,
who wrote a fan letter to Poe's Broadway foumal:
DEAR SIR-Your account of M. Valdemar's Case had been universally copied in this city, and has created a great sensation. It requires
from me no apology, in stating, that I have not the least doubt of the
possibility of such a phenomenon; for, I did actually restore to active
animation a person who died from excessive drinking of ardent spirits.
He was placed in his coffin ready for interment.
I will give you the detailed account on your reply to this, which I
require for publication, in order to put at rest the growing impression
that your account is merely a splendid creation of your own brain, not
having any truth in fact. My dear sir, I have battled the storm of public
derision too long on the subject of Mesmerism, to be now found in the
rear ranks-though I have not publicly lectured for more than two
years, I have steadily made it a subject of deep investigation.
I sent the account to my friend Dr. Elliotson of London; also to the
"Zoist,"-to which journal I have regularly contributed.
Your early reply will oblige, which I will publish, with your consent,
in connection with the case I have referred to. Believe me yours, most
respectfully. 6o
Poe toyed with his victim: "We have no doubt that Mr. Collyer is perfectly correct in all that he says-and all that he desires
us to say-but the truth is, there was a very small modicum of
truth in the case of M. Valdemar-which, in consequence, may
be called a hard case-very hard forM. Valdemar, for Mr. Collyer,
and ourselves. If the story was not true, however, it should have
been-and perhaps 'The Zoist' may discover that it is true after
all. " 61 To which there was little for Collyer to reply.
Poe was so hard on Collyer because he asked for it. Given his
career, and the tone of his letter, one might also suspect the
doctor of having invented his revivification just to cash in on
Poe's. The truth was, Collyer actually had had the adventure he
reported, though the facts were not quite what his letter implied. In the spring of 1841 Collyer had "revived" a sailor who
had drunk himself into a stupor ("No perceptible respiration, no
pulse, surface cold and clammy")-but his technique had not
39
been mesmerism at all, rather "a hot bath, and constant friction
of the whole body, which was continued for over three hours." 62
Collyer fails to mention the hot bath and chafing in his letter to
Poe; that would have spoiled his story.
One obvious response to pseudo-science is simply to make
fun of it like this, which is our modem stance. But it was
possible to take it much more seriously and still condemn it.
This was the reaction of Hawthorne, who had less faith in all
science than Poe, and who saw pseudo-science as demonic.
There is some evidence that Hawthorne may have seen Collyer perform-he mentions him in one of his sketches, 63 and the
portrait of an evil mesmerist in The Blithedale Romance bears
some resemblance; but Hawthorne's condemnation was not
directed at any single individual so much as at the whole
pseudo-scientific fad. He particularly deplored any science of
the psyche that seemed to meddle with spiritual nature, for this
was blasphemous. When his fiancee announced her intent to be
mesmerized (for her migraines), Hawthorne wrote her anxiously: "I am unwilling that a power should be exercised on
thee, of which we know neither the origin nor consequence, and
the phenomena of which seem rather calculated to bewilder us,
than to teach us any truths about the present or future state of
being .... ! have no faith whatever that people are raised to the
seventh heaven, or to any heaven at all, or that they gain any
insight into the mysteries of life beyond death, by means of this
strange science .... Keep the imagination sane-that is one of the
truest conditions of communion with heaven." 64
These sentiments found their way into many of his stories.
"The Birthmark," for example, shows us Poe's ghoulish mesmerist several centuries earlier, as an alchemist pursuing the
same life-and-death researches. Using his esoteric sciences to
remove a tiny birthmark from the cheek of his wife, Aylmer
finds his technology too powerful-or rather, what comes to the
same thing, the birthmark turns out to be no mere blemish but
the very stigma of mortality. In eradicating it he uproots life
itself. Hawthorne's work parades a dozen such pseudo-scientists
before the reader to enforce this fervent moral: every materialistic endeavor to lay bare the secrets of human life and spirit
40
TAYLOR STOEHR
is nothing but hubris, the ancient sin of pride and blasphemy.

In secular terms that his villains might more readily understand, Hawthorne's critique accused them of promoting a crass
psychology of weights and measures, cause and effect, in which
the most complicated and subtle problems of ethics, love, and
faith are reduced to electrochemical instrumentalities. It was
not that Hawthorne thought their formulas and entities delusions-though in most cases he probably did-but rather that he
foresaw a terrible contraction and deadening of human spirit in
these new sciences of mind.
At this level of his indictment, our modern distinction between true science and pseudo-science may not seem very relevant. Even though the fuzzy doctrines of pseudo-science have
been largely debunked by our more painstaking investigators,
we have too much accepted their aims while rejecting their
methodologies. I am not thinking merely of obvious examples
like chemotherapy for "hyperactive" children, genetic engineering, or artificial intelligence research, but of the twentiethcentury attitude that assumes scientific wisdom consists in
knowing which technology to apply in a given instance.
Indeed, from this point of view the Victorian pseudo-scientists often knew better than we do. The refusal of homoeopathists and hydropathists to dose their patients with the
nineteenth-century miracle drugs might well be imitated by
modern practitioners. This does not mean that all scientific
discoveries are panaceas from Pandora's box, for clearly no one
believes that. But Hawthorne's warning ought not be ignored.
The modern tendency to conflate science and technology as a
single unified discipline, to rush every scientific truth into
application before we have thoroughly understood it, is precisely our pseudo-science, complete with all the characteristics
that we deplore in Collyer's career-the reduction of psychic
phenomena to materialistic explanations, the reckless experimenting with human subjects, the substitution of publicity for
candor, the eagerness for marketable results, the assumption
that whatever new problems technology may create it can also
solve, that there is always some new discovery in the offing that
will explain what is unknown and set everything to rights.
41
Our test of a science seems to be whether or not we can derive

a profitable technology from it, the same criterion applied in
Collyer's day to theories we now think of as pseudo-scientific.
Some, like psychography; proved worthless and ended on the
junkheap; others grew respectable through success. Consider
the history of daguerreotypy; or the metamorphosis of Dr. Coult,
the pseudo-scientific lecturer on nitrous oxide, into Samuel
Colt, the revolver king. Or the fact that Alexander Graham
Bell's father was the inventor of something called "visible
speech, the science of universal alphabetics." Or the fact that in
the 1840s Congress debated (half-seriously) whether mesmerism ought not be subsidized along with Morse's proposed
telegraph, as an analogous form of magnetism. 65
Collyer's own later life makes the point dramatically. The
anesthesia controversy of 1847 was the last major pseudo-scientific effort of his career. He seems then to have realized that he
had missed the one chance to make a name for himself that way;
thereafter he turned to pursuits more practical and socially
useful. During the next decade he practiced medicine on the Isle
of Jersey; went West with the Gold Rush, was in charge of a
cholera hospital in Mexico City. He focused his fertile imagination on sober, patentable inventions-a new method for crushing quartz, a new amalgamating process, an improved breechloading cannon (all associated with his California adventures);
after finally settling down in England in the mid-1850s, he
continued to experiment with new processes and devices: for
making paper, for cleaning wheat, for a chemical ink pencil, for
telegraph cables, and so on. 66 A born technologist, he was equally at home in mind or matter, so long as there was a profit to be
made there.
Collyer never turned his back on the pseudo-science of the
psyche while concentrating on more mundane engineerings.
Having been one of the first to claim the power to talk with the
dead, Collyer now amused himself by sending in occasional
contributions to The Spiritualist Magazine, getting out all his old
press clippings in order to convert his theories of somnambulism to the new mediumship. When the world-famous "slatewriting" medium Henry Slade was sentenced to three months'
42
TAYLOR STOEHR
hard labor for fraud, Collyer published an article defending him.

His own research convinced him that "all the varied phenomena" of psychic experience could be explained "on a material hypothesis"-that is, that science and religion were
reconcilable. Even more, the decades he devoted to "the practical sciences of electricity, chemistry, engineering, mining, &c .
. . . tended to confirm my ideas that all things were merely different states of materiality." 67
Here was Hawthorne's mad scientist to a t, grinding everything spiritual down to its secular atoms. When he announced
his discovery of psychography in 1843, Collyer betrayed an
enormous ambition: "I know that my age will not give me the
credit I demand, but I know that posterity will carry out what I
have begun, and when scarcely a tombstone of this generation
has been left behind, when all party strife and private animosity
shall have been buried and forgotten, then will these experiments take their proper rank in the temple of knowledge; nor is
the expectation vain, when I declare, that they will form the
cupola of human attainment." 68 If we consider his contribution
in his own narrow terms-the discoveries of Tune and Proper
Names, of phrenomagnetism, psychography, or even of anesthesia-his claims are false and his ambitions thwarted; but seen
more broadly, as part of the overwhelming technological revolution that has usurped both science and pseudo-science in our
day, it must be admitted that Collyer was right: the attitude he
represented has come into its own, with achievements beyond
his somnambulist's wildest clairvoyance, and with both ecological and spiritual costs not even the gloomy Hawthorne could
imagine.
Notes--------------------------------------------1. H.A. Simon and A. Newell, "Heuristic Problem Solving: The
Next Advance in Operations Research," Operations Research 6 (Jan.Feb. 1958): 8; quoted in Joseph Weizenbaum, "The Computer in Your
Future," New York Review of Books, Oct. 2 7, 1983. Dust jacket of Geoff
Simons, Are Computers Alive? Evolution and New Life Forms (Brighton, Eng.: Harvester, 1983) quoted in H.C. Longuet-Higgins, "On the
Altar of Al," Times Literary Supplement, Oct. 28, 1983.
43
2. Carol Kahn, Beyond the Helix: DNA and the Quest for Longevity
(New York: Times Books, 1985), p. 260.
3. The history of the ether controversy is told in many standard
sources. Collyer's part is presented by the anonymous Lancet writer in
"The History of Anaesthetic Discovery: II," Lancet, June 11, 1870,
840-44.
4. Ibid., p. 843.
5. R.H. Collyer, Manual of Phrenology, 4th ed. (Dayton, Ohio: B. F.
Ells, 1842 [copyright 1838]), p. 34.
6. Robert H. Collyer, Exalted States of the Nervous System, 3rd ed.
(London: Henry Renshaw, 1873), p. 6; Mesmeric Magazine [Boston]1
(July 1842): 26; Lancet, p. 841.
7. Mesmeric Magazine, p. 16; Robert H. Collyer, Lights and Shadows of American Life (Boston: Redding & Co., 1843), p. 15.
8. Lancet, p. 842.
9. Anon., The History and Philosophy of Animal Magnetism, by A
Practical Magnetizer (Boston: J.N. Bradley & Co., 1843), p. 7.
10. Collyer, Lights and Shadows, p. 15.
11. Ibid.
12. Ibid.
13. Charles Gibbon, The Life of George Combe, 2 vols. (London:
Macmillan, 1878), 2:74.
14. Mesmeric Magazine, p. 28.
15. Collyer's use of his Manual of Phrenology in these ways is
assumed from the practice of others in the field.
16. Collyer, Manual of Phrenology, pp. 33-39.
17. Collyer, Exalted States, p. 5.
18. Robert H. Collyer, Psychography (Philadelphia: Zieber & Co.,
1843), p. 5; Exalted States, p. 49.
19. Collyer, Manual of Phrenology, pp. 99-100.
20. Collyer, Psychography, p. 5; Exalted States, pp. 48-49.
21. Collyer, Psychography, p. 32.
22. Collyer, Lights and Shadows, p. 35.
23. Mesmeric Magazine, p. 13.
24. LaRoy Sunderland, Ideology, 2 vols. (Boston: J.P. Mendun, 1885),
1:31-35, lists nineteen such cases he himself attended.
25. Collyer, Psychography, p. 26; Exalted States, p. 126, and passim.
27. Bernard Jaffe, Men of Science in America (New York: Simon and
Schuster, 1944), pp. 163-64; Collyer, Exalted States, p. 124.
28. Lancet, p. 842.
44
TAYLOR STOEHR
30. Ibid., pp. 5-6, 127.

32. Rene Fiilop-Miller, '!humph over Pain, trans. Eden and Cedar
Paul (New York: Literary Guild, 1938), p. 211.
33. Lancet, p. 843.
34. See J.K. Hall, ed., One Hundred Years of American Psychiatry
(New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1944), pp. 54, 67.
35. See John D. Davies, Phrenology: Fad and Science (New Haven:
Yale Univ. Press, 1955), passim.
36. John Humphrey Noyes, Bible Communism (Brooklyn: Office of
the [Oneida] Circular, 1853), p. 47.
3 7. Gordon Rattray Taylor, The Science of Life (New York: McGrawHill, 1963), pp. 197-98.
38. See Martin Kaufman, Homoeopathy in America (Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1971), passim.
39. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Homeopathy and Its Kindred Delusions (Boston: William D. Ticknor, 1842), p. 54.
40. Collyer, Psychography, pp. 5-6; Exalted States, p. 49.
41. LaRoy Sunderland, "Mental Organs," Magnet 1 (Oct. 1842):
107-9.
42. See, for example, Magnet 1 (June 1842): 13; Collyer, Psychography, pp. 12-13.
43. Collyer, Lights and Shadows, pp. 16-17.
44. Collyer, Psychography, pp. 15-16; American Phrenological Journal n.s., 5 (Feb. 1843)94-95.
47. Frank Podmore, From Mesmer to Christian Science (New Hyde
Park, N.Y: University Books, 1963 [c. 1909]), p. 59.
48. Magnet 1 (July 1842): 34.
49. American Phrenological Journal n.s., 5 (Feb. 1843): 94-95; (July
1843): 331-32.
50. Mesmeric Magazine, pp. 31-32.
51. George Lippard, The Quaker City (New York: Odyssey, 1970 [c.
1845]), pp. 526-27.
52. Davies, Phrenology, pp. 132-33.
53. LaRoy Sunderland in Spirit World 3 (Sept. 1851): 117.
54. Collyer, Exalted States, pp. 66, 110.
55. Clara Endicott Sears, Days of Delusion (Boston: Houghton
Mifflin, 1924), p. 243.
56. Chauncy Hare Townshend, Facts in Mesmerism, 1st Amer. ed.
(Boston, 1841).
45
57. The copy Collyer gave to Neal is in the possession of Dr. Jacques
M. Quen, New York City. It is inscribed "September 7, 1841."
58. See Sidney E. Lind, "Poe and Mesmerism," PMLA 62 (1947):
1077-94. Lind thinks Poe used the edition of 1844, but Collyer's 1841
edition is equally possible.
59. Thuos Mathos [Thomas South], Early Magnetism in Its Higher
Relations to Humanity, as Veiled in the Poets and the Prophets (London: H. Balliere, 1846), p. 116.
60. The Broadway [ournal2 (Dec. 27, 1845): 390-91.
61. Ib1d.
63. "The Hall of Fantasy;" Pioneer 1 (1843): 55.
64. Oct. 18, 1841. Huntington Library.
65. Hal Sears, The Sex Radicals (Lawrence: Regents Press of Kansas,
1977), p. 14.
66. Collyer, Exalted States, pp. 14, 28, 128.
67. Robert H. Collyer, Automatic Writing: The Slade Prosecution
(London: H. Vickers, 1876); Robert H. Collyer, "My Brother's Ghost,"
Spiritual Magazine, May 1, 1861, p. 235.
JOHN L. G R E E N W A Y - - - - - - - - -
3. "Nervous Disease"
and Electric Medicine
Browsing through popular and even learned periodicals from the

late nineteenth century, a modem researcher is apt to be both
amused and amazed by advertisements asserting that a device
prefixed by "electric" will cure most of the ailments known to
man. In the Illustrated London News for April 10, 1886, for
instance, the Medical Battery Co., Ltd., describes its "ELECTROPATHIC (Battery) BELT" (figure 3.1 ), just 21 shillings. The company claims unreservedly that the device has taken care of" over
a quarter of a million patients," who have been "successfully
treated for rheumatism, lumbago, sciatica, gout, kidney complaints, paralysis, indigestion, constipation, female complaints,
general and local debility, functional disorders, etc." The advertisement asks, "Can you afford to die?" reminding readers that
"all disorders of the Nervous System, Impaired Vitality, and
Defective Organic Action can be speedily, effectually and permanently cured by wearing the ELECTROPATHIC (Battery) BELT,
which is guaranteed to restore vital energy."
Ads for similar devices (such as electric cigarettes) purporting
to cure "nervous ailments" festooned the pages of other
periodicals and late Victorian walls. 1 The modem reader, even
while smiling, might seriously ask, "How was such credulity
possible?" While one can always retreat to the eternal "caveat
emptor," the key to understanding the popularity of this array of
curative electric belts, rings, brushes, garters, towels, tooth-
ELEGTROPATHIG
:PaiGII %Ia., I'OST-I'ai'IIJ,
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BELT
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LUKBAGO, SCIATICA, GOUT, IIDNIY COKPLAINTS, IPILIPBY, PARALYSIS, INDIGISTION, CONSTIPATIO.,
PIKALI COKPLAIHTS, GI.IB.AL AHD to=At DIBILlTY, PU.CTIO.AL DISOB.DIB.l, loc.
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Medical Battery Co., Ltd., 52, OXFORD-STREET, LONDON, W.

Fig. 3.1. The Electropathic (Battery) Belt, as advertised m the Illustrated
London News, April 10, 1880.
r;~'~
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Fig. 3.2. Harness' Electric Corset, advertised in The Queen, March 12, 1892.
"Nervous Disease" and Electric Medicine
49
brushes, and corsets lies in understanding the premises governing contemporary inquiry concerning the nature of electricity
and its relationship to the nervous system.
While the electrical aspect of popular medicine should not be
isolated from patent medicines and other nostrums, we can
from that aggregation of gadgets suggest that the gulf between it
and what was considered legitimate research was not as vast as
one might suppose. Indeed, given the assumptions regulating
researchers' questions, Harness' Electric Corset (figure 3.2)
seemed hardly less plausible as a cure for "nervous exhaustion"
than those advocated in medical journals and texts. As bizarre
as such illustrations seem today, at the time they embodied
metaphors of a new but legitimate field for biological research.
"Biology" as a normative term did not come into play until
1802, so the newness of electricity as a field for scientific research, plus the lack of norms within the field, invited the
exotic speculations of Mesmer and mystical advocates of animal magnetism. By the mid-nineteenth century physiological
criteria rephrased the relationship between electricity and
organic life, but prior to that time the therapeutic effects of the
unseen world of electricity seemed equally unintelligible to
scientists and quacks alike. Furthermore, until the acceptance
of the germ theory of disease, there was little physicians could
do to intervene in the course of a disease in any manner other
than trial and error. Assertions of electricity's therapeutic efficacy outside the community of normal science played upon
just this element of the unknown.
The scientific establishment of the Enlightenment, though
hostile or indifferent to the exotic showmanship of Mesmer; 2
was by no means uninterested in the relationship of artificial
electricity to the weather and man. In France, Mauduyt's therapeutic premises of fluids clearing blockages in the nerves differed from Mesmer's only in the lack of exotic trappings.
Mauduyt performed several experiments with electricity where
he immersed the patient in "electric baths," or drew sparks to
increase the flow of nervous fluid, or attempted to free neural
blockages through shocks from a Leyden jar, a drastic measure
Mesmer did not try.3
50
JOHN L. GREENWAY
Still, the absence of anything but conjecture as to why these

experiments stemming from sanctioned research should sometimes show startlingly beneficial results prompted pseudo-scientific ingenuity to answer the question in dramatic terms,
satisfying the imagination in a way conventional medicine and
science could not. At these fringes of legitimate inquiry into
electricity and biology we encounter a modern version of
shamanism. In 1779 a Dr. James Graham, intrigued by Franklin's experiments, established the Temple of Health in London.
For a fee of one hundred pounds one could avail oneself of his
"medico-electrical apparatus" and his three great medicines:
"Electrical .tf.ther, Nervous .tf.therial Balsam, and Imperial
Pills," while breathing "electrical, dephlogisticated and vivifying atmosphere." For another fee, one could lie in his Celestial
Bed to insure "propagation of Beings, rational and far stronger
and more beautiful than the present puny, feeble and nonsensical race of probationary mortals." Graham told the curious
that this genesis was accomplished through 1,500 pounds of
electromagnets, while he communicated the "celestial fire,
... the fluid which animates and vivifies all," to the fructifying
bedchamber. While Graham was notorious as the "emperor of
quacks," he coopted his scientific opposition by asserting his
pious intentions and scientific credentials, warning the public
all the while against the "electrizing quacks" on every corner. 4
Graham may have been the first of the electrical quack doctors, but popular faith in the efficacy of his Temple stemmed
from the scientific suspicion that this manmade fluid had healing properties similar to those of atmospheric electricity, the
latter being the subject of a quite legitimate research program
undertaken by Mauduyt as part of the general Enlightenment
interest in the relationship between weather and health. The
popular interest in such phenomena is shown, for instance, in
the New-York Weekly Joumal for May 9, 1748: "For the Entertainment of the Curious. To Be Shown, The most surprising
Effects of Phenominas on the Electricity of Attracting, Repelling, & Flemmies Force, particular to the New Way of Electrifing
several Persons at the same Time, so that Fire shall Dart from all
Parts of their Bodies .... And it's tho't to be of Service to many
Ailments."
51
Although part of the early interest in electrotherapy went the

way of entertainment and quackery, it must be borne in mind
that "quackery" often becomes obvious only in retrospect. In
the 1790s Dr. Elisha Perkins had, according to his letters, a firm
belief that his "metallic tractors" were based upon Galvani's
theories, and would cure "pains in the head, face, teeth, breast,
stomach, back, rheumatism, and all joint pains," as well as
"paralysis, lameness, and deformities of all types ... " since "far
the greatest part of our pains is caused by a surcharge of the
electric fluid in the parts affected." The tractors were described
as looking like a pair of horseshoe nails. For an advised twenty
minutes a day, one passed them downwards or outwards over the
afflicted area; never upwards. Although the Connecticut Medical Association expelled Perkins in May 1797, many cures were
said to have been effected, and "Perkinism" spread to Denmark
and Germany. Even George Washington bought a pair. 5
Generally, the medical use of electricity in the early nineteenth century was usurped by the mesmerists, the magnetizers, and the philosophic biology of theNaturphilosophen, and
as such fell into official disfavor. By mid-century, however, electrotherapeutics became part of normal science through being
rephrased in terms of a radically new but acceptable research
program: physiology. Although electrotherapeutics developed
as a legitimate research program in this context, on its frontier it
was still complemented by the popular imagination.
Electrophysics as practiced by Coulomb and Ampere had
been accepted as a legitimate direction of research in the new
field, probably because its theories of fluids were less flamboyant than the biological speculations of the mesmerists. Faraday's discussions of electromagnetism and induced currents in
the 1830s revived the medical establishment's interest in electricity. Furthermore, the stem rejection by Claude Bernard and
other physiologists of the previous generation's speculative,
philosophically grounded biological theories helped to clear the
field of the taint of animal magnetism and speculation in favor
of a new, reductionist biology based upon experiment. 6
The physiologists focused their experimental energies upon
the fashionably radical research program of vivisection.!
Though socially controversial in the extreme, vivisection al-
52
JOHN L. GREENWAY
lowed the physiologist for the first time to intervene directly in

the metabolic processes of life forms and to attempt to control
them. Electrotherapy did not attract the heated controversy of
vivisection, but Du Bois-Reymond's experiments upon the
electrical activity of living tissue in 1843 established the field as
legitimate science, away from romantic speculation upon the
electrical essence of life. Returning to the question of harnessing this electrical activity for therapeutic use, Duchenne's papers in France (1849) and Remak's Galvanotherapie in Germany
(1858) reestablished the respectability of electricity in diagnosis
and therapy of neural disorders.
To the physiologically trained generation of researchers, any
biological effect had of necessity a physical cause. In discussing
neural disorders, for instance, it was no longer sufficient to state
that Madame was suffering from "vapeurs." "Nervousness is a
physical state not a mental state," asserted George M. Beard,
"and its phenomena do not come from emotional excess or excitability ... but from nervous debility and irritability." 8 This
generation of Du Bois-Reymond, Helmholtz, and Ludwig assumed lesions of the brain or nervous system to be the only
possible cause of mental illness, and that such physical causes
should be counteracted by physical means. In this context, not
only did electric medicine become respectable, but Wilhelm Erb
managed to imply that electrotherapeutics was the newest of
the new by stating that its relationship to physiology was similar to that of physiology to biology. Calling his field "electrophysiology;" he asserted that this research "has led, in many
respects, to a depth and exactness of knowledge, such as are
scarcely excelled in any other branch of physiology." 9 Later in
the century Erb's Handbuch der Electrotherapie and von Ziemssen's Elektricitiit in der Medicin became basic texts for the programs of a new generation of researchers. Julius Althaus, in the
third edition of his A Treatise on Medical Electricity (18 73 ), more
modestly admitted that electrotherapy lay on the fringes of
scientific respectability and, as such, he declared that the newness of galvanism as a research program combined with the
vastness of the field to make discoveries of principles (as opposed to empirical guesswork) difficult and uncertain. Althaus
53
warned against a kind of quack within the scientific community: those experimenters, ignorant of physiology, whose empiricism had brought the field into disrepute. The field could be
freed from the taint of speculation, Althaus contended, only by
scientific study of electricity's physiological effects. 10
Metaphor and analogy gave a certain narrative quality to
these medical texts, and the popular imagination was to seize
upon these metaphors and graphically dramatize them. The
most frequently used metaphor expressing the relationship of
electricity to human physiology was that of the battery. As A.D.
Rockwell wrote in his text on electrotherapeutics of 1903,
"Chemic action of any sort whatsoever is attended by the evolution of electricity," so in the nerves "energy is undoubtedly
stored, possibly in the same sense, although not in the same
demonstrable way that chemical action is stored in the ordinary
storage batteries. " 11
The battery metaphor seemed persuasive to the medical
imagination of the time. Beard's use of the metaphor is typical:
"Men, like batteries, need a reserve force, and men, like batteries, need to be measured by the amount of the reserve, and
not by what they are compelled to expend in ordinary daily life."
Lesions of the nerves come from "unusual drains," continued
Beard (a friend of Edison's) and cause "overload." 12
Beard's great achievement lay in combining medical theory
with social theory in a manner that appealed to both the scientific and the popular imagination. Beard gathered a number of
real and imagined "symptoms" of "nervousness" (at one time,
some three dozen) into a collage and popularized the lot as
"neurasthenia." Nervous exhaustion became the fashionable
disease of the fin de siecle. For this generation, Beard provided a
scientifically plausible (that is, physiological) explanation for
the exhausted businessman, the wasted, superfluous youth languishing in late-century novels, and the erratic, hyperexcitable,
swooning women who appeared so frequently in these novels.
Redefining the criteria for naturalistic characterization, the
dramatist August Strindberg declared in 1887 that "we are all
neuropaths." 13
Popular advertising, published in an age with next to no
54
JOHN L. GREENWAY
formal regulation, capitalized upon the popularity of neurasthenia; eye-catching graphics and rhapsodic testimonials
promised what the physician could not: cures. The technique of
reproducing pictures had just replaced stylized type arrangements,14 and the graphics of these advertisements for cures of
"nervous disease" became part of a complex interplay of science, pseudo-science, and non-science late in the century. Indeed, it was often difficult to tell the difference.
Whether Beard used the language of the advertisements or
vice versa is unclear, but in his Practical Treatise on Nervous
Exhaustion (Neurasthenia) of 1880, he described neurasthenia as
"general debility, spinal weakness, and nervous prostration." In
a noteworthy parallel, Dr. Dye's Voltaic Belt could cure those
with "Nervous Debility, Lost Vitality, Lack of Nerve Force and
Vigor, Wasting Weaknesses." Beard attributed the physiological
causes of neurasthenia to the unique stresses in contemporary
social environment: "steam power, the periodical press, the
telegraph and the mental activity of women."l 5
Initially, physicians regarded neurasthenia as a disease of
men, with women's neural exhaustion expressing itself as hysteria, "found usually in those whose emotional natures greatly
predominate" and "is connected in many instances with some
sexual or uterine derangement." 16 By the end of the century
physicians began to question this distinction, but in the 1870s
and 1880s neurasthenia was fashionable for weary males, hysteria for anxious females.
Women, being as a rule of smaller stature than men, were
assumed to have less "nerve force" than men. Naturally, they
would be more prone to nervous overload as they attempted
mental activity. Medical objections to the "new woman" of the
eighties and nineties were, given the assumptions regulating
the research done, quite sound. Feminists wishing to argue their
case on scientific grounds had some difficulty, particularly in
matters pertaining to race. Comparisons of cranial capacities,
for instance, showed women's skulls to be not only smaller than
those of Caucasian men, but comparable to those of Bushmen. 17
Many feminists had also been abolitionists, and even scientists in favor of women's suffrage were put in the uncomfortable
55
position of either losing their case or accepting qualitative racial

differences in discussions of mental and neural resources. Ludwig Buchner, discussing "The Brain of Women" in 1893, says
that if a "dirty, idiotic negro" male can vote, it would be absurd
to deny Caucasian women with similar cranial capacities the
same privilege. 18 As the demands upon the nervous system
coming from the environment were the same for men and
women, women would, given their smaller physique, be proportionally more depleted, physicians warned.
Given the kinds of questions considered legitimate by researchers in the nineteenth century, it was on the whole a
difficult time for feminists to use science to buttress their
campaign. The American Medical Association debated the suitability of women for the medical profession for some time in its
Journal, the editor in 1891 expressing grave doubts about the
feminine constitution to withstand the rigors of the profession.
As a compromise, however, he suggested that a woman might
succeed by treating patients of similar mental resources-that
is, other women or non-Aryan peoples. 19 We will see below how
the commercial world responded to this constitutional deficiency in women. Mental activity by women was, then, regarded as unusual, debilitating, and, some argued, unnatural.
Given the criteria used to formulate the questions researched,
the arguments seemed tenable.
As mentioned above, physiologists generally assumed the
cause of any disease to be somatic. Unfortunately, neither Beard
nor anybody else could detect any neural lesions or any other
physiological manifestations, but Beard and those interested in
the new disease (actually, only the label was new) retreated to a
faith that scientific progress would ultimately explain this lack
of evidence. Rather than question the premises underlying his
research, Beard blamed the coarseness of contemporary instrumentation and anticipated the exquisite devices to come, feeling assured that his theories would "in time be substantially
confirmed by microscopical and chemical examinations of
those patients who die in a neurasthenic condition."2o
Beard's description of nervous exhaustion met with considerable-albeit not universal-acceptance. 21 His book had a sec-
56
JOHN L. GREENWAY
ond edition within a year, was soon translated into German, and
"neurasthenia" began to earn multiple-column entries in medical encyclopedias. While part of Beard's success must be attributed to his explaining contemporary attitudes in appropriate physiological language, his significance for cultural history lies in his fusing a somatic description of neurasthenia with
the social Darwinism of Herbert Spencer. Writing in Atlantic
Monthly in 1879 on the "Physical Future of the American People," Beard described Darwinism as the "highest generalization
that the human mind has yet reached," and placed his scientific
facts in the context of current social theory. Noting as an accepted fact that differences in nerve force are hereditary ("nervous
diathesis"), he explains these differences by contending that the
farther the species progresses in its evolution and the more
complex becomes its life, the greater becomes the strain upon
the neural reserves of even the strong. Hence, it stands to reason
that neurasthenia would afflict the wealthy, the refined, and the
sensitive. 22
Conjectures concerning the relationship between atmospheric electricity, the climate, and human health had prompted
legitimate research for over a century. Beard plausibly argued
that America's fluctuating climate produced singular changes
in atmospheric electricity, which have a deleterious effect upon
the neural balance of the refined. Beard was confident that the
neurasthenia that plagued his time was but a contemporary
sympton of the evolution fo a superior race.
As Rosenberg notes in his study on Beard, his view became
popular not through its novelty, which would have signaled a
genuine scientific revolution, but through its familiarity. 23 Specifically, Beard's etiology of "nervous disease" fused two accepted research programs in different disciplines, putting the
morphological emphases of contemporary scientific research
into the narrative structure of Spencerian Darwinism. However
obsolete his scientific premises sound today, Beard did begin the
modern interest in social origins of mental illness. By the end of
the century specialists such as Wilhelm Erb became somewhat
skeptical of the myriad of vague "symptoms" covered by the
term "neurasthenia," but had to concede it to be "the fashion-
57
able neurosis of the present time." 24 Hysteria, the female counterpart of neurasthenia, seemed to be equally popular, and by the
time Freud began to redefine the physiological premises of
neural disorders, neurasthenia and hysteria were the two most
accepted targets for research in the field of mental illness. 25
Might it be possible to recharge the neural battery through
harnessing electricity? Therapies for neural disorders have often
taken a somewhat bizarre turn, but they contribute to our
understanding of nineteenth-century medicine and of how it
was complemented by the popular imagination. Appealing to
the latter, Dr. Scott's Electric Hair-Brush (figure 3.3) appears to
be at the frontier of research. "(Made of Pure Bristles, NOT
WIREs), Warranted to cure Nervous Headache in 5 minutes" and
to "immediately soothe the weary brain," this device appeared
less preposterous to the consumer than it does now. It was
simply part of the dramatic novelty of another technological
breakthrough: in this case, applied electricity. With Miss Liberty holding one of the new electric lights on the cover, the
German Electric Belt Agency appealed to faith in progress in its
sober little pamphlet called "The Electric Age" (ca. 1889). Soon,
the brochure argued, everything would be done by electricity,
and the "subtle fluid" of its belt would be without doubt the
"coming method of treating all forms of disease." The reader
might well infer that the company's belt was the latest advance
in electrical medicine, its therapeutic apex. 26
Even the scientific establishment, although it eventually
rejected Mesmer and his magnetic fluids as a "public menace,"
could not deny that cures were effected. Similarly, legitimate
scientists could not gainsay the claims of the belt makers, for
their research was proceeding along the same lines, if in more
discreet language. DuBois-Reymond had shown all muscles and
nerves to be seats of neural currents; Duchenne, who apparently
invented the term "faradization," suggested localized treatment to repair lesions in his De l'electrisation localisee in 1855.
The next generation of researchers-Remak, von Ziemssen,
Althaus, and Erb-began mapping body electricity physiologically.27 Applying such maps became the task of electrotherapeutics experts such as Rockwell (Beard's early collabor-
.&. &lftal r .. for ~an.

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1883.
59
ator) and Erb. In 1871 Beard and Rockwell described "general

faradization" thus: one electrode was placed on the feet, the
other moved in a systematic manner over points of the chest,
back, abdomen, neck, extremities, and head. This resulted in "a
stimulating tonic with a powerful sedative influence" and was
allegedly an "agent for improving nutrition." 28 Electrotherapy
was frequently employed for treating hysteria: Bischoff had
used electricity of a sort as early as 1801, while Beard and others
found it "indispensable."29
The 1880s saw a plethora of advertisements for electric garments of all sorts designed to rehabilitate "spinal weakness,"
"nervous debility," and everything else, for that matter, through
a simple extension of the electrotherapeutics metaphor. If Erb
and Rockwell described "faradization" verbally, Harness' Electric Corset did so visually. To be sure, researchers within the
scientific community had been aware of "electrizing quacks"
since the time of Dr. Graham's Celestial Bed. Althaus, it will be
recalled, voiced concern over the use of electricity by those
untrained in physiology, but warnings such as his did little to
clarify the border between what was seen as legitimate science
and pseudo-science. 30 Since at the frontiers of research the
border is not always obvious, scientists shared in the ignorance
of the charlatans if not in their profits, and the gadget makers
had used Althaus's strategy from the beginning. Dr. Graham
warned against unscientific frauds in announcing his "Temple
of Health," and the German Electric Belt Company gave
Bismarck as a reference and intoned the credentials of the inventor, a P.H. Vander Weyde, M.D. ("President of the New York
Electrical Society"). In addition, the company warned sternly of
"bogus imitations," and offered to pay $500 if a galvanometer
did not register a current.
On the scientific front, neurasthenia still resisted detection
by physiological means in the 1890s. Many of those involved in
the research program kept the faith that the new instrumentation would discover anatomical changes, as did Savill, publishing his lectures on neurasthenia in 1899.31 Electricity's service
in treating "nervous disease" encountered a similar dilemma.
Erb, who with Rockwell became one of the leading late-century
60
JOHN L. GREENWAY
advocates of electrical therapy; met Beard in 1904. By that time

even he had to admit that he had not the faintest idea how
electrotherapy worked, and that he still could find no physiological evidence of its efficacy. Though he continued to advocate research in electrotherapeutics, the best he could say of it
was that "its office consists in the removal of the nutritive
disorder of the nervous system, in strengthening the entire
organism, and in combating individual and especially annoying
symptoms." 32 By this time he had abandoned the battery metaphor, but popular advertising retained its semipoetic prose and
scientific pretensions. The demarcation remained indistinct.
In 1891 Rockwell addressed the American Medical Association, remembering how some thought electrotherapy for neurasthenia to be quackery; he maintained, however, that it could
now be accepted as a legitimate science, its future assured.
Rockwell's confidence turned out to have been misplaced, however. The integrity of the research program as he understood it
had suffered seriously by the tum of the century; and from
several sources. First, the basic imagery regulating the understanding of electricity had changed. By 1903 even Rockwell not
only had to concede that he, too, did not understand why the
treatment worked, but also that researchers had been wrong all
along about the nature of electricity. Not only was there no
neural fluid, electricity was not a fluid after all. By that time he
realized that some previously accepted terms such as "current"
and "flow" could now only be used metaphorically; for "electricity is now believed to be identical with the luminiferous
ether." 33 After Einstein's paper in 1905, of course, the ether
itself as a medium began its eclipse into obsolescence.
Beard, in the fifth edition of his Practical Treatise on Nervous
Exhaustion (Neurasthenia) (1905), was fully aware of competing
research concerning mental illness, but still insisted upon the
physiological basis of the disease and its treatment. He still
viewed electricity as having the "ability to restore the conductibility of the neuron that has become resistant to the nerve
current. The inherent energy of the nerve cells is liberated, new
paths of conduction form, resulting in modification of both
motor and sensory process." 34
61
The assumptions with which one approaches a research project tend to dictate the range of conclusions. When expected
results do not occur, the researcher either recognizes the inadequacy of the original premises (most difficult to do, as we have
seen thus far) or keeps faith in the original analogies and in the
progress of science to validate them. The author of an article on
"The Similarity of Electric and Nerve Forces" in the foumal of
the American Medical Association (lAMA) of August 1885 realized that something was wrong somewhere, and reexamined the
whole set of analogies, beginning with the therapeutic use of
discharges from the torpedo fish. He recognized that modern
research demanded "a knowledge of the brain and of the network of the nervous system" and an appreciation of the "exaltation or depressing of nerve power" as an agency in this.
Eloquently describing the progress of science into the "ocean of
truth," the author had to admit that "just how electricity acts as
a therapeutic agent, no experimenter has satisfactorily explained." Unwilling to abandon the battery metaphor, however,
he resorted to a topos in some schools of biological research,
romantic in origin, that the expected results must be forthcoming, for "we will maintain our text: 'the unity of Nature.' "35
On a less elevated level, the increasing dominance of physiology led to a weakening of training in pharmacology and a
general deemphasis of therapeutics in the medical school curricula-a fact of which the merchandisers of belts and nostrums
were happily aware. Claude Hopkins, writing of My Life in
Advertising in 1927, recalled that those writing advertising copy
and selling medicines to physicians often knew more about
pharmacy and therapeutics than did their customers.3 6 Further
eroding the already blurred line between the medical and the
popular conception of therapy came the marketing practices of
reputable companies. Parke-Davis, for instance, sold "Videopathy" treatments along with its legitimate preparations, and
Seabury & Johnson played upon new words in the scientific
vocabulary in marketing "Radiozone."37
Illustrating the unfortunate vacuum in medical training, Erb
suggested in 1878 the following cure for neurasthenia, which
deserves quotation in detail. The patient must
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63
live a regular and healthy life in every respect, and must continue this
plan with the greatest perserverance. He must work little, and only at
fixed hours, with frequent interruptions; must go to bed early and sleep
as much as he can; must have an abundance of strong, easibly digestible
food, at not too great intervals; spirituous drinks are allowable in
moderation; much moving about in open air ... is absolutely necessary;
patients who are very easily exhausted must sit a great deal out of doors
in good air; the sexual act must be restricted as much as possible, but ...
sexual excitement without gratification must be avoided as much as
possible.38
Erb continues by suggesting therapy in Switzerland or the Tyrol;

scant wonder Beard found neurasthenia popular among the
wealthy.
The gulf between popular treatments for "nervous diseases"
and those suggested by physicians was not as great as one might
suppose, in that both operated upon a combination of faith
(either in the efficacy of the device itself or in the progress of
instrumentation) and ignorance. According to Beard, the symptoms of neurasthenia resemble those of syphilis, and have similar cures. It is difficult to read without a shudder the "cure"
offered by a quack in New York for syphilis, or "self-abuse."
"The patient sat naked upon a sort of toilet throne, his bare back
resting against a metal plate, his scrotum suspended in a whirling pool." 39 The plate and pool were linked by wire to a power
source; therapy began when the circuit was completed. While
this therapy doubtless cured lads of some of the vices in question, normal therapy worked from much the same (albeit less
graphic) premises. Erb suggested, for "flaccidity of the testicles"
due to sexual excess, "the passage of a moderately strong faradic
or galvanic current through the testicles for a few minutes," 40
while the [AMA of March 19, 1892, reported that M. Kronfeld of
the General Hospital of Vienna treated syphilis with an electric
bath. Dommer, in the meantime, suggested treating "sexual
neurasthenia" by passing a faradic current between one electrode in the urethra and the other in the rectum. 41
So the popularity of electrical devices promising fast, fast,
fast relief from "spinal weakness" cannot be solely ascribed to
charlatanism and gullibility. The advertisements shared the
64
JOHN L. GREENWAY
premises and language of legitimate research programs. They

often visualized their metaphors through the new technique of
reproducing pictures. Such an ad for Harness' Electric Corset
(females, particularly the "new woman," would need neural
refreshment more than men) showed a well-rounded beauty
leaning out of the apparatus with a bemused smile, while
"magnetic rays" darted from the electrified stays (figure 3.2).
For "diseases of men" the German Electric Suspensory Belt,
mentioned previously, had four batteries pulsing electricity.
More elaborate yet, the radiant illustration of the Heidelberg
Electric Belt in the Sears Consumer Guide for 1900 seizes the eye
with its gaudy array of apparatus (figure 3.4). The pouches were
detachable, so the belt could be worn by both sexes.
One should not isolate the discussion of popular electric
therapy from patent medicines and nostrums of the time. Part of
the competitive appeal of medical electricity, however, lay in its
scientific, invisible, and drugless nature. Morphine addiction
was common to veterans of the Civil War, and some of the
putative cures for alcoholism were themselves forty proof. After
Samuel Hopkins Adams, writing in Collier's Magazine in 1905,
exposed the alcohol, morphine, opium, and cocaine contents of
patent medicines, new tonics appeared in Sears catalogues purporting to cure alcoholism and drug addiction. 42 The Sanden
Electric Company, however, declared that "electricity, properly
applied, will do more for you than all the drugs ever compounded. " 43 Rockwell, too, contended that one of the virtues of
electrotherapeutics lay in the ability to experiment without
drugs. 44
If we look at the popular cures from the point of view of the
advertiser rather than the scientist, another aspect of the relationship between normal science and popular culture emerges.
Claude Hopkins confesses about his early career that he probably should not have published the medical ads, but notes that
the nostrums did more good than harm, in that "people bought
results, not medicine." These results, Hopkins surmises, came
"largely through mental impressions": in other words, suggestion.45
Ironically, Hopkins's marketing instinct solved the problem
65
which had confronted the scientists who had once rejected

Mesmer, Graham, and Perkins as frauds-the sometimes startling remissions of maladies hitherto inaccessible to conventional treatment. Hopkins recalls the success of his ploy the
commercial guarantee, particularly the one affixed to "Dr.
Shoop's Rheumatic Cure." "It worked like magic," he asserted.
Hopkins was right in several ways. Essentially, the guarantee
increased the suggestive power of the purchase by telling the
buyer that the element of risk or danger had been removed. In
effect, the cure lay in the act of purchase rather than in the
product itself. The advertisements for the garments, the testimonials from authorities, the scientific terminology, and the
visual depictions of scientific metaphors all lent plausibility to
the products and increased their suggestive power. The German
Electric Belt Company, for instance, details in its pamphlet the
credentials of the two inventors, and, while never saying precisely how the invention works, gives the reader a vague feeling
of having been scientifically edified.
The manufacturers also sensed that the impact of visual
impressions to suggest security to the consumer went beyond
language arid graphics. In his investigations for Collier's, Samuel
Hopkins Adams noted of a certain C.J. Thatcher of Chicago that
"he wore a magnetic cap, a magnetic waistcoat, magnetic insoles, and ... his legs ... swathed like a mummy's in magnetic
wrappings." 46 So plausible were the electrical cures that when
A.D. Crabtre exposed in The Funny Side of Physic (1872) all the
bleeders, patent medicines, and other forms of "humbug," he
made no mention of electrical garters, oils, tablets, and toothbrushes.
By the end of the century "nervous diseases" and their electrical treatments were beginning to lose their power over the
medical imagination. Skepticism crept into the medical literature, at least in part because such diseases doggedly refused to
exhibit any physiological manifestations. Electrotherapy also
resisted explanation, and lost favor partly because, as even Erb
had to admit, it failed more often than not. Ironically, the new
instrumentation for which so many had hoped showed that,
while electrotherapy could make abnormal cells less patholog-
66
JOHN L. GREENWAY
ical, this was done at the expense of normal cells, causing "electrical neurosis. "47
More importantly, the falling into disfavor of neurasthenia
and electrotherapeutics as research programs reflected a change
in the assumptions regarding the mind and mental illness. The
insight on the part of the advertisers as to the element of
suggestion was not far removed from an emerging research
program within the scientific community which was not physiologically based, and which would contend with and
eventually replace the electrotherapeutic assumptions of Beard
and others. In 1884 Engelskjon noted that in certain cases hot
and cold water had the same therapeutic effect as electricity, and
in the Reference Handbook of the Medical Sciences (1903) Bailey
draws from "hints" that traumatic neuroses (neurasthenia and
hysteria) come from "mental impressions" (the same term used.
by Hopkins) rather than from physical injuries.4 8
We see here the beginnings of a change in the medical imagination stemming from the experiments on suggestion by Charcot and Bernheim in the 1870s. Bernheim noticed that the
patient's belief in the efficacy of the cure was often of more
importance than the technique of the cure itsel. 49 In 1843
James Braid rescued therapeutic suggestion from disgrace by
renaming it, first, "neuryphnology," and, finally, "hypnotism."
In 1891 a Frankfurt Congress, convened to discuss "Elektrotherapeutische Streitfragen," was sharply divided upon just this
possibility that suggestion produced the results attributed to
electricity. 5 Freud, though interested in Beard's work, especially his later emphasis upon the sexual etiology of neurasthenia, shifted the assumptions regulating the term away
from physiology and radically restricted its use. 5 1
Among non-scientific texts one sees a similar shifting of
assumptions and imagery. Harper's Bazaar 42 (1908) showed the
change in scientific and popular tastes by carrying Alice Fallows's article on "Mind Cure for Women's Ills," in which the
author tells her readers (on p. 266) that for "functional nervous
diseases" (neurasthenia had been described as such) "mindtrance by suggestion" is the best cure. Interestingly, the set of
gynecological assumptions concerning women's neural re-
Fig. 3.5. Beecham's Pills advertisement, from the Illustrated London News,
May 9, 1896.
68
JOHN L. GREENWAY
serves were changing as well: an article in the [AMA in 1894

questioned the blanket use of "female weakness" as a concept
that only obscured ignorance and sometimes led to unnecessary
surgery. 5 2
The enigmatic nature of the unseen world of energy continued to provide a frontier to the imagination in which the
lines between science and pseudo-science were often blurred.
The Sears Consumer Guide, for instance, provides an excellent
mirror to changing popular taste. By 1909 the Heidelberg Belts
that pulsed from the pages of the 1900 fall Guide were gone,
although patent medicines and elixirs such as Beef and Iron
Wine continued. Electricity continued to be of some use in
therapy, although without the earlier underlying physiological
assumptions. The discovery of the dramatic characteristics of
other forms of energy, however, prompted reactions similar to
those attending electricity. The New York Medical Week of January 10, 1925, carried a page of advertisement extolling the
11 ethereal virtue" of 11 Elixir of Radium." Roentgen's discovery of
X-rays in 1895 lent a breathless quality to Rockwell's introduction to the 1903 revision of the eighth edition of his and Beard's
Practical Tteatise on the Medical and Surgical Uses of Electricity,
but as one might suspect, the inventive advertiser in the Illustrated London News (figure 3.5) went science one better in 1895:
With this marvellous search-light the scientist may
Just explore the inside of a man as he wills;
So we soon shall expect our physicians to say"You are rather opaque, and must take
BEECHAM'S PILLS."
Notes--------------------------------------------Research for this chapter was supported by the program in Humanities,

Science and Technology of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
1. See the collections of Victorian advertisements in Gerald Carson,
One for a Man, Two for a Horse (New York: Doubleday, 1961); L. De
Vries and Ilonka van Amstel, The Wonderful World of Advertising,
69
1865-1900 (Chicago: Follett, 1972); Adelaide Hechtlinger, The Great

Patent Medicine Era, or, Without Benefit of Doctor (New York: Grosset
& Dunlap, 1970). For an illustration of the omnipresence of advertisements, see the illustrations in Diana and Geoffrey Hundley, Advertising in Victorian England, 1837-1901 (London: Wayland Publishers,
1972), chap. 1, "The Media."
2. On Mesmer, see Robert Darnton, Mesmerism and the End of the
Enlightenment in France (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1968);
Rudolph Tischner and Karl Bittle, Mesmer und sein Problem: Magnetism us, Suggestion, Hypnose (Stuttgart: Hippokrates, 1941); Rene
Kaech, "Om mesmerismens ursprung och foregangere," Ciba Journal!
(1947): 274; and MariaM. Tatar, Spellbound: Studies on Mesmerism
and Literature (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1978), chap. 1, "From
Mesmer to Freud," pp. 3-44.
3. See Geoffrey Sutton, "Electric Medicine and Mesmerism," Isis 72
(1981): 384-86.
4. On Graham, see Charles J.S. Thompson, The Quacks of Old
London (London: Brentano, 1928), pp. 333-35; Grete de Francesco, The
Power of the Charlatan, trans. Miriam Beard (New Haven: Yale Univ.
Press, 1939); Geerto Snyder, Wunderglaube and Wahn: A us der bun ten
Welt der Scharlatane (Munich: Brockmann, 1965), pp. 145-46. For an
eyewitness account of Graham's "magnetic magic," see Joseph Ennemoser, Geschichte der Magie (Leipzig, 1844), p. 924, and his
Anleitung der mesmerischen Praxis (Stuttgart: Cotta, 1852). For
Graham's description of his apparatus, see his "A Sketch, or, Short
Description of Dr. Graham's Medical Apparatus &c" (London, 1780).
5. See Thompson, Quacks of Old London, 338-42, and Jacques M.
Quen, "Elisha Perkins, Physician, Nostrum-vendor, or Charlatan?"
Bull. Hist. Med. 37 (1963): 159-66.
6. Everett Mendelsohn, "The Biological Sciences in the Nineteenth
Century: Some Problems and Sources," History of Science 3 (1964):
39-54. See also Werner Leibbrand, Romantische Medizin (Heidelberg
and Leipzig: H. Coverts, 1937), chap. 5, " 'Thierischer Magnetismus'
und romantische Totalitat," pp. 119-43.
7. For a sense of vivisectionists' militancy and heroic self-depiction,
see the preface to Elie de Cyon, Methodik der physiologischen Experimente und Vivisectionen (Giessen: J. Ricker, 1876): "Soll die Medizin
ernst eine streng wissenschaftliche Basis in allen ihren Zweigen
erhalten, so muss sie dieselbe in erster Linie von der Physiologie erwarten" (p. 8). For the controversy, see Victor D. French, Antivivisection and Medical Science in Victorian Society (Princeton: Princeton
Univ. Press, 1975).
70
JOHN L. GREENWAY
8. George M. Beard, American Nervousness, Its Causes and Consequences (Supplement to Nervous Exhaustion), 1881, in Medicine
and Society in America, ed. Chas. Rosenberg (New York: Amo Press,
1972), p. 17. See also S. Weir Mitchell, Diseases of the Nervous System,
Especially in Women (Philadelphia: Henry C. Lea, 1881), p. 219. Generally, see Francis G. Gosling, American Nervousness: A Study in Medicine and Social Values in the Gilded Age, 1870-1900 (Norman:
Oklahoma Medical College, 1976), and George Frederick Drinka, The
Birth of Neurosis: Myth, Malady, and the Victorians (New York: Simon
and Schuster, 1984).
9. Wilhelm Erb, Handbook of Electro- Therapeutics, trans. L. Putzel,
Wood's Library of Standard Medical Authors (New York: Wm. Wood,
1883), p. 33.
10. J. Althaus, A Treatise on Medical Electricity, Theoretical and
Practical, and its Use in Paralysis, Neuralgia, and Other Diseases, 3d
ed. (London: Longmans, Green, 1873), pp. xi-xii.
11. Alphonso David Rockwell, The Medical and Surgical Uses of
Electricity, Including the X-Ray, Fins en Light, Vibratory Therapeutics,
and High-Frequency Currents (New York: E.B. Treat & Co., 1903 ), p. 21;
JAMA 20 (1893): 73.
12. George M. Beard, American Nervousness, pp. 11, 98. For more on
the battery metaphor, see John S. and Robin M. Haller, The Physician
and Sexuality in Victorian America (New York: Norton, 1977), pp.
9-24.
13. "Sjalamord (apropos Rosmersholm)," Samlade Skrifter, ed.
Landquist, 22 (Stockholm: Bonniers, 1920): 189.
14. "Spreading the Word," Printers' Ink 184 (July 28, 1938): 84.
15. Beard, American Nervousness, p. 96. For assessments of Beard,
see Charles E. Rosenberg, "The Place of George M. Beard in Nineteenth-Century Psychiatry," Bull. Hist. Med. 36 (1962): 245-59. Philip
P. Wiener, "G.M. Beard and Freud on American Nervousness," Journal
of the History of Ideas 17 (1956), has the best list of Beard's numerous if
duplicatory publications; and generally, see Haller and Haller, Physician and Sexuality, chap. 1, "The Nervous Century."
16. Allan McLaine Hamilton, Nervous Diseases: Their Description
and Treatment (Philadelphia: Henry C. Lea, 1878), p. 378.
17. Seminal to craniometry was Emil Huschke's Schadel, Him and
Seele des Mens chen und der Thiere nach Alter, Geschlecht and Race ...
(Jena: Mauke, 1854). For overviews of this research program, see Stephen Jay Gould, The Mismeasure of Man (New York: Norton, 1981),
chaps. 1-3; Haller and Haller, Physician and Sexuality, pp. 48-61; J.
Haller's paper on "Neurasthenic Women: The Medical Profession and
71
the 'New Woman' of the Nineteenth Century," New York Journal of

Medicine 70 (1970) 2489-97.
18. Ludwig Buchner, "The Brain of Women/' New Review 9(1893):
176.
19. "On the Province of Women in Medicine/' JAMA 19 (June 20,
1891): 893.
20. George M. Beard, "Neurasthenia or Nervous Exhaustion,"
Boston Medical and Surgical fournal80 (1869): 217.
21. In a review of Beard's Practical Treatise on Nervous Exhaustion,
E.L. Spitzka commented upon Beard's prolific writings as a "diarrhoea
of words and a constipation of ideas." St. Louis Clinical Record 7
(1880-81): 92-94.
22. George M. Beard, "The Physical Future of the American People," Atlantic Monthly 43(1879): 727. The Saturday Review, though
not given to the more sensational advertisements, ran one during 1879,
the height of neurasthenia's popularity, which declared that "brain
work is undoubtedly far more exhausting than bodily labour," and
extolled "Grant's Morella Cherry Brandy" as a restorative.
23. Charles E. Rosenberg, "The Place of George M. Beard in Nineteenth-Century Psychiatry," Bull. Hist. Med. 36(1962): 245.
24. Erb, Handbook, p. 290.
25. Henri F. Ellenberger, The Discovery of the Unconscious (New
York: Basic Books, 1970), p. 244.
26. "The Electric Era: The German Electric Belts & Appliances"
(Brooklyn: The German Electric Belt Co. [n.d.], 1899[?]), copy in the
National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, Md. Copies of the Pulvermacher Galvanic Co. of New York's "Electricity, Nature's Chief Restorer. .. Cure of Nervous and Chronic Diseases without Medication
(New York, 1878) and the Volta Belt Co.'s "Electricity, The Best Curative Agent ... " (n.d.) may be found in the Cincinnati Historical Society
archives.
27. A concise survey of the theories may be found in Irving Samuel
Cutter, "History of Physical Therapy and its Relation to Medicine,"
Principles and Practice of Physical Therapy, ed. Harry E. Mock et al.
(Hagerstown, Md.: WE Prior, 1932), pp. 57-58.
28. George M. Beard and Alphonso David Rockwell, A Practical
Treatise on the Medical and Surgical Uses of Electricity, Including
Localized and General Electrization (New York: William Wood, 1871).
See Edward Stainbrook, "The Use of Electricity in Psychiatric Treatment during the Nineteenth Century," Bull. Hist. Med. 22 (1948):
166-67.
29. Stainbrook, "Use of Electricity," p. 172. George M. Beard, "The
72
JOHN L. GREENWAY
Treatment of Insanity by Electricity," Journal of Mental Science 19

(1873-74): 355.
30. See the papers in Thomas Hardy Leahey and Grace Evans Leahey, Psychology's Occult Doubles: Psychology and the Problem of
Pseudoscience (Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1983) for discussions of the difficulty in distinguishing between the two terms in any manner save in
retrospect.
31. Thomas D. Savill, Clinical Lectures on Neurasthenia (New
York: Wm. Wood, 1899), p. 22.
32. Erb, Handbook p. 103. He adds, "And who will affirm that there
are not other at present unknown effects of electricity upon the living
organism, upon which the most important therapeutic results depend?" (p. 104). See the results of Engelskjon below for the unintended
irony of this statement.
33. Rockwell, Medical and Surgical Uses, p. 20.
34. George M. Beard, A Practical Treatise on Nervous Exhaustion
(Neurasthenia), ed. A.D. Rockwell (New York: E.B. Treat, 1905; Kraus
Reprint Co., 1971), p. 284.
35. John J. Caldwell, "The Similarity of Electric and Nerve Forces,"
JAMA 5 (1885): 227. On the romantic basis of this biological theme, see
L.S. Jacyna, "Perceived General Physiology: The Comparative Dimension to British Neuroscience in the 1830s and 1840s," Studies in History of Biology 7 (1984): 61-68.
36. Claude Hopkins, My Life m Advertising, (Chicago: Advertising
Publications, 1966), pp. 73-77.
37. David L. Dykstra, "The Medical Profession and Patent and Proprietary Medicines during the Nineteenth Century," Bull. Hist. Med.
29 (1955): 88, 90-99.
38. H. von Z1emssen, "Diseases of the Spmal Cord," in Cyclopaedia
of the Practice of Medicine trans. Geoghean et al. (New York: William.
Wood, 1878), 7:380-81.
39. For the description, see Champe Seabury Andrews, A Century's
Criminal Alliance between Quacks and Some Newspapers (New York:
Stettiner Bros, 1905), pp. 7-8, cited in James Harvey Young, "Device
Quackery in America," Bull. Hist. Med. 39 (1965): 158.
40. Erb, Handbook, p. 350.
41. F. Dommer, "Urethrale Faradisations-Elektroden," Deutsche
Praxis 10 (1898): 23.
42. Lydia Pinkham's Vegetable Compound, for instance, was 14
percent alcohol, while "croup tonics" would induce your tot to sleep
tight by means of morphine, laudanum, or cocaine. His Collier's arti-
73
des were reprinted in Samuel Hopkins Adams, The Great American

Fraud (Chicago: AMA Press, 1912). See also Edward Bok, "The 'PatentMedicine' Curse," Ladies' Home {ournal 21 (May 1904): 18, and E. S.
Turner, The Shocking History of Advertising! (New York: Dutton,
1953), pp. 203-6.
43. Arthur J. Cramp, Nostrums and Quackery (Chicago: AMA
Press, 1936) 2:721. The German Electric Belt Co. said that its products
would cure opium and morphine addiction, since these were but "an
electric disturbance in the system."
44. Rockwell, Medical and Surgical Uses, p. 22.
45. Hopkins, My Life in Advertising, p. 77.
46. Adams, Great American Fraud, p. 95.
47. C. Engelskj6n, "Die ungleichartige therapeutische Wirkungsweise der zwei elektrische Stromsarten und die elektrodiagnostische
Geschichtsfeldsuntersuchung," Archiv fiir Psychiatric und Nervenkrankheiten 15 (1884): 138.
48. Ibid., p. 139; Pearce Bailey, "Nervous System," in Reference
Handbook of the Medical Sciences 6 (New York: William Wood, 1903):
240.
49. Bernheim's experiment cited in Robert Hillman, "A Scientific
Study of Mystery: The Role of Medical and Popular Press in the NancySalpetriere Controversy on Hypnotism," Bull. Hist. Med. 39 (1965):
170.
50. Elektrotherapeutische Streitfragen in Verhandlungen der Electrotherapeuten- Versammlung ... ,ed. Ludwig Edinger et al. (Wiesbaden:
Bergmann, 1892).
51. Henry Alden Bunker, "From Beard to Freud: A Brief History of
the Concept of Neurasthenia," Medical Review of Reviews 36 (1930):
113-14.
52. C.E. Ruth, "Female Weakness," TAMA 19 (Sept. 8, 1894): 389-90.
MARSHALL SCOTT L E G A N - - - - - - -
4. Hydropathy, or the Water-Cure
The principles of hydrotherapy have occupied a time-honored

position in man's arsenal against disease and infirmity. Hydropathic remedies have enjoyed a continuum in the annals of
medical practice from antiquity to the present. But never has so
much emphasis been placed on the value of hydrotherapeutics
as in the period 1820-60, when its practitioners developed their
own unique "system," known as Hydropathy or the WaterCure. To persuade the uninitiated of the soundness and legitimacy of their new "discovery," the hydropaths produced an
elaborate structure of methodology and a vast panoply of
"scientific" literature. Negatively, hydropathy, like Thomsonianism, homoeopathy, and other single-theory cures came to
reject many of the valid practices in the pantheon of regular
medicine. However, as a system devoted to the improvement of
health, the water-cure deserves analysis as one of the least
harmful, at least in its regimen, of the pseudo-sciences.
The originator of the hydropathic or water-cure system
which enjoyed such vogue in the "age of the common man" was
the Silesian peasant Vincent Priessnitz. Born October 4, 1799, in
the vicinity of Grafenberg, Silesia, Priessnitz, while aiding his
father with farm chores, observed the efficacious effects of cold
water compacts in sprains, bruises, and tumors on horses' hoofs.
In addition, an old man who employed cold water in diseases of
cattle shared his knowledge with the inquisitive youth. But it
was not until1816 when Priessnitz was injured while baling hay
that he became an unconditional convert to the therapeutic
Hydropathy, or the Water-Cure
75
merits of cold water for human ailments. Kicked in the face by

the horse and run over by the wagon, Priessnitz suffered two
broken ribs and a severely bruised left arm. An attending physician from nearby Freiwaldau declared that the injured boy could
never be cured in such a manner as to be again fit for work. 1
Unwilling to accept the prognostication, Priessnitz determined
to treat himself. Leaning his belly against a chair, he forced the
fractured ribs into their natural position. Applying wet cloths as
bandages on his ribs and face, he drank plenty of cold water, ate
sparingly, and observed perfect repose. Within ten days, Priessnitz was able to go out, and at the end of a year, he had resumed
working in the fields. 2
The success of his self-cure stimulated Priessnitz's imagination, and he began to broaden his investigations into the general
curative effects of cold water and into which laws of hydrotherapeutics were most applicable in relieving human maladies.
Ultimately, he devised a hydropathic system which employed at
least three modes of treatment: (1) general application of water
to the external body by either a bath or douche; 3 (2) local
application of water to particular parts of the body through the
method of ablution, and (3) internal use of water by drinking,
lavements, and injections. 4 As his therapeutic reputation
spread locally, especially his success in relieving gout and rheumatism, Priessnitz established a hydropathic institute in
Griifenberg in 1826. Meeting with limited success initially, he
found his notoriety did not begin to spread until1830 when the
Austrian government granted him authority to receive patients
and treat them under his own "system." 5 A close viewer of the
hydropathic scene, R.T. Claridge, reported the number of individuals treated by Priessnitz at his establishment. Starting with
only 45 patients in 1829, the numbers had increased to 469 by
1836, and in 1840 1,576 took the cure. Between 1829 and 1841,
Claridge calculated, over 7,298 patients followed the regimen of
the Silesian hydropath. 6
Even more remarkable than the numbers was the geographic
diversity of the clientele attracted to Griifenberg, which included patients from "St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Paris, London and Philadelphia, Astrakhan and Constantinople, Vienna,
76
Berlin, and Warsaw; and all Germany, Hungary, and Italy furnish
their several contingents." 7 Indeed, the inmates had a decidedly
"upper crust" tinge; for example, in 1841 there resided for
treatment an archduchess, ten princes and princesses, at least a
hundred counts and barons, military men of all grades, several
medical men, professors, lawyers, and other notables. 8
Because of the growing popularity of the hydropathic cure,
initiates on both sides of the Atlantic began to search the records of antiquity for evidence in support of the legitimacy of the
water-cure regimen. Citations of proof ranged from the mundane to the sublime, and no shred of support was thought too
small to ignore. Euripides' statement "The sea removes each
taint of evil from the human race" was cited to describe how the
dramatist, traveling with Plato in Egypt, fell ill and was cured by
bathing in the sea. 9 In De Medicina Aulus Cornelius Celsus, the
Roman encyclopedist, advised the following hydrotherapeutic
regimen if a patient, bitten by a rabid dog, developed a fear of
water: "In these cases there is very little hope for the sufferer.
But still there is just one remedy, to throw the patient unawares
into a water tank which he has not seen beforehand. If he cannot
swim, let him sink and drink, then lift him out. If he can swim,
push him under at intervals so that he drinks his fill of water
even against his will. For so his thirst and dread of water are
removed at the same time." Celsus did warn, however, that "a
spasm of sinews, provoked by cold water, may carry off a weakened body." As a palliative to the frigid shock, Celsus believed
the patient should be taken straight from the water tank and
"plunged into a bath of hot oil." 10 In 1846 the editor of DeBow's
Review, published in New Orleans, printed an eleven-page article entitled "On the Revival of the Roman Thermae or Ancient
Public Baths." 11 Dr. Sam Kneeland, Jr., of Boston described how
the moderns had not improved much upon the therapeutics of
antiquity in the use of water as he invoked the names of Hippocrates (460 B.c.); Asdepiades, who was surnamed the "cold
bather" from his zeal; Musa, who cured Augustus Caesar; Celsus, Galen, Avicenna, Paracelsus, and other notables in the
history of medicine. 12 Replying to a sneer in The Lancet, a
supporter claimed that the water-cure was "as old as the flood,
77
the first grand treatment by that remedy having taken place in

the time of the venerable Noah." 13 Even a poetess, Mrs. A.C.
Judson, was inspired to contribute several pieces to the Water-
Cure Journal:
Cold Water Song
All hail to pure cold water,

That bright rich gem from heaven;
And praise to the Creator,
for such a blessing given!
And since it comes in fulness,
We'll prize it yet the more;
For life, and health, and gladness,
It spreads the wide earth oer.l4
Wash and Be Healed
Go wash in pure water, 'twill gladden thy soul,

And make the diseased clayey tenement whole;
'Twill nerve thee for life's deepest trials and bring
A zest with each joy around thee may spring. Is
As the evolving panacea had its adherents, it also had its
critics, and considerable print and paper were devoted to the
fallacies, evils, and potential harms inherent in the hydropathic
regimen. The British Lancet condemned the itinerant physicians of hydropathy and began to report unsuccessful cures and
even deaths in the fallacious attempts to cure every malady
with water.l 6 One detractor wrote: "The hydropathists have
discarded this excessive precaution and boldly used their remedy as a tonic, whenever a tonic is required. They have administered it to the old, the weak, the bilious, the gouty, the
scrofulous, the dyseptic, and the paralytic. Neither mucous
membranes nor mesenteric glands, infantile weakness, nor senile decrepitude have stood in their way." 17 American periodicals especially delighted in repeating the experience of JeanJacques Rousseau with the cure back in 1736. Adopting the coldwater system with little discretion, Rousseau recalled that "it
nearly relieved me, not only of my ills, but of my life." 18 Suffer-
78
ing from a languid condition and being sick of a milk diet, Rousseau began to arise every morning and go to the fountain with a
goblet to drink, as he walked about, as much as two full bottles
of water, while entirely leaving off wine at meals. He graphically
described the results:
The water which I drank was a little hard and difficult to pass, as
mountain springs generally are. In short, I succeeded so well, that in
less than two months I entirely destroyed the powers of my stomach,
which had been very good up to the time. Being no longer able to digest
anything, I thought it useless any longer to hope for recovery. At this
time an accident happened to me, singular in itself, and in its consequences which will only cease with my life.
One morning when I was no worse than usual, whilst raising up a
little table which had fallen, I perceived a sudden and almost inconceivable revolution throughout my whole body. I know not how to
compare it better than to a kind of tempest, which arising in my blood,
gained in an instant all my limbs. My arteries commenced beating with
such force, that I not only felt their beating, but I even heard it, especially the beating of the carotid. In addition there was a great noise in
my ears, and this noise was triple, or rather quadruple-to wit a deep
hollow-buzzing, a clear murmur like that of running water, a very
shrill blowing sound, and the beating which I have mentioned, the
blows of which I could easily count, without feeling my pulse or
touching my body with my hands. This inward nmse was so great, that
it destroyed the fineness of hearing which I had had formerly, and
rendered me, not entirely deaf, but hard of hearing, as I have continued
to be ever since that time.
One may judge of my surprise and consternation. I gave myself up for
dead, and took to my bed .... At the end of some weeks finding that I was
neither better nor worse, I left my bed, and resumed my ordinary habits
of life, with the beating of the arteries and the buzzing in the ears,
which from that time-that is to say for 30 years-has not ceased for
one minute.I9
In another critical vein, the Boston Medical and Surgical

Journal described how obdurate prisoners were subdued by cold
showering. An investigation by prison officials concluded that
cold water showering, as practiced at the Auburn (N.Y.) State
Prison, when continued long enough and in the mode to make
an efficient punishment, was "injurious to health." 20 Even a
scoffing poet replied in biting verse:
79
Oh! do not say that doctor's stuff

Could cure my woesome ills;
Or think that ever health is found
In potions or in pills.
No noisome draught could bring relief
No drug my fever quell;
Healthy, rosy maid, like Truth, is found
In the bottom of a well.21
And a rhymster in The Knickerbocker opined in satirical verse:

It's water, water everywhere,
And quarts to drink, if you can bear:
'Tis well that we are made of clay
For common dust would wash away!22
Another piece pictured an invalid doused with buckets of water

until at last he "turned pale and kicked the bucket." 23
In spite of its critics, the water-cure system developed by
Priessnitz soon spread with major impact into England. The
English people had not been unaware of the benefits of cold
water in the treatment of disease. In the early 1700s works had
appeared in England with such titles as Psychrolousia, or the
History of Cold Bath, both Ancient and Modem, J.S. Hahn's The
Healing Virtues of Cold Water, but especially a work by the
British novelist and surgeon Tobias George Smollett, entitled
An Essay on the External Use of Water (1752). 24 Smollett reported: "The efficacy of the Cold Bath, tho' unimpregnated with
mineral principles, is so well known in hypochondriac Disorders, in diseases of the lox fibre, and partial weakness, when the
Viscera are not unsound, that there is scarce a Physician, Surgeon, or Apothecary; who has not opportunities of seeing it
everyday." 25 With the hydropathic craze infecting England, a
London hydropathic institute was organized in 1842, and watercure centers were hastily established in other localities. A published monograph described English spas, and Malvern, England's leading hydropathic institution, became a center of
English society. 26 Older health spas like Bath and Brighton were
refurbished and adopted the Priessnitzian regimen. Rules for
the bath were minutely prescribed for the decorum-con-
80
scious. 27 Even Alfred Tennyson, soon to become the poet laureate of England, testified at a hydropathic establishment in 1844:
"Much poison has come out of me, which no physic ever would
have brought to light."2s
As in England, the general tenets of hydrotherapy had been
described in America long before the time of Priessnitz. In 1723
an American edition of John Smith's The Curiosities of Common
Water was released, followed in 1725 by The Curiosities of Common Water: or the Advantages Thereof in Preventing Cholera. 29
Americans, quite early; had discovered the delights of mineral
and natural springs. Travelers had long extolled the merits of
particular locations, two of the more popular being Saratoga
Springs, New York, and Hot Springs, Virginia. 30 However, other
local promoters published reports of miraculous cures as they
undertook to gain similar reputations for their own regional
health spas. Readers of the American periodical press were able
to follow both sides of the hydropathic debate in Europe
throughout the thirties. It was not until the beginning of the
1840s that the brand of therapy advanced by Priessnitz began to
spread to the United States.
In the 1820s the American nation had entered the period
known as the "age of the common man," when little credence
was given to professional credentials. Consequently; the mood
of the nation was ripe for the spread of the pseudo-sciences, in
part because of reaction against the excessive practices of regular medicos who often depended on the radical use of phlebotomy; vomiting, blistering, sweating, purging, and intemperate medication. It is little wonder that Americans, observing the
debilitating effects that eclectic physicians had on patients,
would seek cures that promised less shock to the body and
seemed, at least initially; just as effective in their curative powers. Americans had always taken water with their meals-a
habit which Europeans tolerated only in the interest of international goodwill.3 1 Under these conditions the water-cure would
blossom full-blown as the handmaiden of health in the egalitarian American society.
The spread of hydropathy became another example of the
readiness of the American public to accept anything new. The
"system" devised by Priessnitz had scarcely reached the United
81
States before several water-cure journals began to be published,

two medical schools of hydropathy opened, and in a few years a
hundred or more practitioners, male and female, were dispensing therapy with positive hygienic results. No doubt, the establishment of bath houses was a direct contribution of hydropathy
to improved hygienic conditions throughout the United
States. 32 No section of the nation enjoyed a monopoly on the
"system," and hydropathic institutes were erected in all sections. The Northeast, however, by virtue of its more diverse
society, often looking for leisure as well as relief, both real and
perceived, proved most amenable to the panacea. It would be
this section that would nurture the system's leaders, publish its
monographs and periodicals, refine the methodology of the new
practice, and carry its "message" into all sections of the nation.
The "Big Four" in American hydropathy became Dr. Joel
Shew, Dr. Russell Thacher Trail, Mrs. Mary Sargeant Gave Nichols, and Dr. Thomas Low Nichols. In 1843 Shew abandoned the
"regular" practice of medicine and adopted the tenets of hydropathy exclusively by opening the first hydropathic establishment
in America in New York City. 33 As sole proprietor or partner in
several other water-cure enterprises, Shew became a leading
supporter as well as editor of the Water-Cure Journal between
1845 and 1848. Numerous articles and published monographs
with such titles as Hydropathy, or the Water Cure, Cholera Treated by Water, Children: Their Hydropathic Management, and The
Hydropathic Family Physician appeared under his authorship.
When Shew died in November 1855, a post-mortem examination revealed an enlarged liver and internal lesions, which may
have been due to his exposure to chemicals like mercury, iodine,
and bromine in his earlier career as a photographer. 34 In essence,
one could conclude that there were certain ailments that were
beyond the pale of water-cure therapy. Dr. Trail followed closely
after Shew in establishing a hydropathic institute in New York
City in 1844. Initially doing as much as any single person to
advance hydropathy's cause, Trail, with his diverse interests in
hygiene, food reform, sensible living habits, phrenology, temperance, and vegetarianism, would later help to integrate the
principles of hydrotherapy into the hygienic cult.3 5
The husband-wife team of Dr. Thomas Low Nichols and
82
particularly Mary Sargeant Gave Nichols proved to be among

the most described hydropaths, if articles appearing in the
periodical press are an indication. Mrs. Nichols, born in 1810,
had become dedicated to helping women relieve themselves of
the physical and mental suffering caused largely by their ignorance of health matters. Embarking on a lecture career to eliminate such abuses, she was attracted to the water-cure system in
the 1830s after successfully applying the European techniques
she had read about to healing herself and her daughter. Affiliating with the Brattleboro (Vermont) Water-Cure, she lectured on
health matters, but after several misadventures eventually located in New York City. In 1847 she met Nichols, who had
abandoned Dartmouth College as a medical student for journalism. Nichols, however, continued his interest in medicine,
and ultimately completed his M.D. degree at New York University. Soon thereafter Nichols transferred his medical allegiance
to the water-cure regimen, and in 1851 the couple established
the American Hydropathic Institute, essentially a coeducational medical school for aspiring hydropaths. The Nicholses,
however, soon became alienated from the other leaders of the
water-cure movement because of their "heretical" views concerning diet and dress reform, health education, women's rights,
and the relations between the sexes. Abandoning the East, they
moved to Cincinnati, and largely dissipated their efforts by
affiliating with too many cultic crusades. 36
The professional's and layman's Bible of the hydropathic
panacea became the Water-Cure Journal and Herald of Reform,
which under various titles survived from 1845 until the eve of
the twentieth century. Initially edited by Dr. Joel Shew, the
periodical enjoyed remarkable success, claiming a circulation of
fifty thousand shortly after 1850. 37 Its prospectus in 1845
claimed that the journal would be devoted to "explaining in a
way the new system ... to provide information on Bathing,
Cleanliness, Clothing, Ventilation, Food, Drinks, and in general
the prevention of disease." 38 When the new periodical experienced financial difficulties in its early existence, it was taken
over in April 1848 by the publishers of the successful American
Phrenological Journal, Lorenzo N. Fowler, Orson S. Fowler, and
83
Samuel Wells. Essentially, the hydropathic journal lasted, in its

original form, from 1845 until 1862, when it became the
Hygienic Teacher and Water-Cure Journal, and under other titles
such as the Herald of Health and Journal of Hygiene and Herald of
Health until1897. 39 Hydropaths were also able to find edification in the Water-Cure Monthly (1859-60), published in Yellow
Springs, Ohio, the Water-Cure World: A Journal of Health and
Herald of Reform (1860-61) published in Brattleboro, Vermont,
Nichols' Journal of Health, Water-Cure and Human Progress, and
assorted local publications.4o
As the definitive authority on the new pseudo-science, the
Water-Cure Journal became the principal butt of the critics'
scorn. Even before Fowler and Wells, who published the American Phrenological Journal, fell heir to the Water-Cure Journal in
1848, they were criticized for including hydropathic articles in
their publication. In an article "Phrenological Hydropathy" O.S.
Fowler's disposition to favor the cold water practice was criticized by the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, which concluded that hydropathic articles were "quite out of place in a
purely phrenological publication where the reader has in past
time been regaled with those noble and lofty views which are
the characteristics of Mr. Fowler's philosophy. It is not possible
to mix hydropathy with phrenology; the oil will rise to the top;
and therefore it is not out of place to say that Mr. Fowler's
Journal always excites the most pleasure when it breathes his
own elevated sentiments, unmixed with the false scheme of
adventurers, who would make the unthinking world believe
that moonshine is tangible. 41 Condemning the one-idea system, the same medical journal argued that "all the while water
is still water" and Wells and Fowler were taking advantage of
those innocents who would place their faith in such a remedy. 42
In 1850 the eclectic medical journal, commenting on the revised
format of the Water-Cure Journal, stated: "Were the subjects that
are discussed in its columns any where near as correct and truly
scientific as its mechanical execution is beautiful, it might rank
with the first journals devoted to medical science." The editor
was inspired to confess that "were we sick, and without any
previous knowledge of the first principles of the healing art, we
84
might possibly choose those doctors who give no medicine." 43

Indeed, it was the proposed mild regimen of the hydropaths
that proved most attractive to the public's desires. Although
refinements in cures might differ from locale to locale and
practitioner to practitioner, they generally followed the pattern
of Dr. Shew in his New York establishment. Water, an extremely
versatile and potent substance which could be used in treating
all kinds of disease, functioned best when administered gradually through the skin. The wet sheet became the approved
technique, although other hydropaths might employ alternative
methods for administering such treatment. Generally, a sheet of
cotton or linen dipped in cold water was spread on several thick
woolen blankets. The patient would then be wound in the sheet
and blankets by an attendant who would secure the wrap with
large pins and tape. Over the encased patient was thrown a
feather bed, and the patient would remain in his cocoon for
twenty-five minutes to several hours, depending upon the seriousness of his condition and his ability to work up a good
perspiration. As soon as he was sweating freely, the victim was
unswathed and cold water poured over him, or he was plunged
into a cold bath, finally being briskly rubbed dry. 44
For patients with weak constitutions, the shock of the wet
sheet treatment was determined to be too radical. An alternative was the wet dress, a gown with extra wide sleeves which
was dipped in cold water before being put on, although the
excellent results obtained by the wet sheet could not be guaranteed. The wet dress became the model of the so-called bloomer
costume, designed in one of the hydropathic institutions, which
would add zest to the dress reform movement. Introduced to the
fashion world by Elizabeth Smith, daughter of abolitionist Gerrit Smith, the bloomer, while neither immodest nor ungainly,
consisted of a loose fitting dress or coat reaching below the
knees and a garment similar to Turkish trousers gathered at the
ankles into walking boots or neatly fitted above house slippers.
Because of frequent bathing, wearers usually cut their hair short
for easy drying, and felt themselves emancipated from the prevailing dress codes of trailing skirts, petticoats, corsets, and
corkscrew curls. The hydropathic costume suffered when it
85
became the badge of women prominent in the suffrage movement. The bloomer dress came to be accepted as a manifestation
of female radicalism, and its aficionados were suspected of 11 free
love" notions and of a desire to be rid of all feminine graces and
restrictions. 45
Another therapeutic variation was the water girdle, made of
toweling three yards long and soaked every three hours in cold
water. Prescribed for varying periods in the day, in extreme cases
the girdle might be kept on continuously for twenty-four hours.
Treatment by these methods was made even more effectual by
the baths. Baths of every kind were utilized, foot, head, finger,
elbow, and arm, but the most popular was the sitz bath which
employed cold water just deep enough to cover the abdomen.
Only the part of the patient actually immersed was bare; otherwise, he was clothed. With his head, arms, trunk, and legs at
strange angles, the patient remained in the sitz for twenty to
thirty minutes, or as long as his acrobatic talents permitted. The
most powerful dousing stimulant employed was the shower
bath, but even the milder douche was used with greatest caution, for water falling on the head from an extended height or for
an extended period was deemed extremely dangerous. 46
Another essential ingredient of the hydropathic cure was
water drinking for internal cleansing. Most patients were directed to drink copious amounts of water, the quantity varying
from five to forty tumblers in twenty-four hours. 4 7 The WaterCure Journal extolled water drinking and advised that twelve to
twenty-four tumblers should be the minimum and maximum
doses. Through the regimen of water drinking, the elements of
the body were clarified-the blood purified. The process when
sufficiently repeated for a significant time would 11 evacuate
anything acid, acrid, irritating, effete; and without the forced,
unnatural, and exhausting efforts of the organism which drugs
induce." 48 More unpleasant to the patient consequently not
discussed as openly as water drinking were lavements and injections of cold water. Enemas were prescribed for constipation and
in certain cases of diarrhea, with two pints, enough to produce
distension of the colon, the recommended dose. In treatment of
diseases, however, the warning was given that such techniques
86
must be administered under professional direction. Cold injections into the urethra and vagina were of "indispensable necessity in all chronic or acute mucous or muco-purulent discharges
of those passages." To obtain maximum benefit in the ills of
leucorrhoea and uterine catarrh, a small tube was inserted into
the passage while the patient took a hip bath. The instrument
used was described as four inches long, of various calibers from
half an inch to two inches in diameter, and made of a sheet of
zinc wire-work. Allowing water to come into contact with the
walls of the afflicted passage, the water-cure physician claimed
"its introduction is not painful; and its salutary results inconceivable by those who have not used it." 4 9
Dietetic regimen was also an important ingredient of the
Priessnitzian cure, for he believed that the intake of hot food
was injurious to all men. His remedy was to eat cold food, use
water for drink, and regulate the patient's diet. Every stimulant
was taboo, from brandy and claret to mustard and pepper. Luxuries imported from foreign ports, such as coffee, tea, and every
kind of spice, were deemed harmful. No warm beverage whatever was permitted throughout the day, and most of the food
served in the hydropathic establishments was considerably
cooled, although those inmates slightly affected were allowed
to consume warm meats. The caloric value of the dietetic regimen may not have been as nourishing as promised, though
most patients bore their reduction in weight willingly. It may
be correctly assumed that there were cases of obesity where a
loss of weight was indeed beneficial. A patient in a cold water
asylum in Massachusetts joyously proclaimed after five
months' treatment that he had weighed 127 pounds when he
entered the asylum but had been relieved of 33 pounds of bad
flesh and now felt that he had been made over. 50 One wonders
how much of the Priessnitzian diet he could have endured.
Another patient, however, wrote his wife that the table d'hote of
Chester Springs, Pennsylvania, had resulted in his gaining eight
pounds. 5 1
A final significant element in the hydropathic therapy was
exercise, which was generally prescribed at the time of water
drinking. Patients were expected to take large amounts of exer-
87
cise periodically through the day, but especially after the cold
baths, which would stimulate the proper therapeutic reactions.
The most popular form was walking in the open air, for many
hydropathic institutions were located in rural settings where a
person ambulating along rustic forest paths could easily commune with nature. In case of inclement weather or lameness,
gymnastics, dancing, and sawing or chopping wood were utilized. In an age when fainting and frailty were considered desirable for young females of the better classes, the use of dumbbells, skipping rope, and other forms of exercise must have
helped the ladies. 52 The Round-Hill Water-Cure Retreat in
Northampton, Massachusetts, in its advertisements, emphasized its extensive gymnasium, bowling alleys, billiard room,
shady walks, the beautiful valley with the Connecticut River
winding through its center, and the rich and varied scenery
designed to offer everyone sources of amusement and health.
The proprietors claimed that their "great variety of amusements and accomodations [sic] [were) not inferior to any hotel in
the country. " 53 At the Wild Wood Springs in Franklin County,
Mississippi, planters who had been shackled by rheumatism for
twenty-five years could be seen dancing in the ballroom, while
the Waterford Water-Cure Establishment in Maine claimed that
no place in New England affords "superior natural advantages"
in the most beautiful and varied mountain and lake scenery. Six
to ten dollars a week purchased treatment, room, and board at
the Jamestown Water-Cure beside "the lucid lake of Chautauqua," offering" an abundance of water of dewey [sic] softness and
crystal transparency, to cleanse, renovate, and rejuvenate the
disease-worn and dilapidated system. " 54
The growing army of hydropathic practitioners and the proliferation of hydropathic establishments soon found Americans
of all backgrounds actively seeking the water-cure. Water for
drinking, bathing, compresses, and every other purpose imaginable became the great panacea, and persons high and low;
north, south, and west, extolled its benefits. Even William
Shakespeare was quoted in support of hydropathy as Dr. E.A.
Kittridge, writing in the Harbinger, reported the London bard
saying, "Throw physic to the dogs; I'll none of it." 5 5 Harriet
88
Beecher Stowe, soon to become much better known, remained

almost a year in the water-cure at Brattleboro, Vermont, and her
husband, who during her absence had relapsed into hypochondria, decided that he too needed a cure, remaining in Brattleboro for fifteen months. Another literary figure, Charlotte
Forten, claimed that Dr. Seth Rogers, who had treated her during
one of her breakdowns at the Worcester, Massachusetts, watercure, had done her "a world of good-spiritually as well as
physically." 56 William Gilmore Simms, distinguished editor,
novelist, and historian, wrote about the cure in the Magnolia; or
Southem Apalachian. His letter to James Henry Hammond,
dated Charleston, June 17, 1842, stated: "One fact, I have been
more than a month following his [Priessnitz's] rules and never
half so well in my life-but twice have I had the headache in the
time, and before that I had it almost every other day." 57 In
defense of the water-cure Simms included an article on hydropathy in his literary journal, observing that "we are really of the
opinion that the remedial virtues of cold water are very great,
and superior, in some cases to those of any other specific .... For
our literary and professional readers-for those who like ourselves, are compelled by frequent physical suffering, incident to
the habits of the student, which the allopathist and Homeopathist have alike ministered in vain,-it may be well to see what
is promised by hydropathy." 58
In nearly all water-cure establishments miraculous cures
were claimed and testimonials appeared frequently in the popular press. The experience of three members of the William S.
Hamilton family may be taken as indicative of the system's
success. Spending time in a Biloxi, Mississippi, institution run
by Dr. Alexander Byrenheit in 1851, Kitty Hamilton wrote of
the institution's proprietor: "I have never had to deal with a
Physician possessed of the same delicacy and consideration for
female modesty. He is a perfect gentleman." 59 The good doctor
diagnosed her illness as a combination of two acids in the blood,
but "Miss Kitty's" constitution was so strong that the acids had
not attacked her stomach nor her lungs, which would have
caused consumption. Fortunately, the malady had settled in her
bladder, a condition which water could remedy. Her sister, Pen-
89
elope, declared in a letter: "It is a happy change indeed from

poisonous drugs to pure cold water. Would to heaven, I had come
here when I was first taken sick; instead of being butchered by
Pill givers. How many hours of pain and anguish I might have
been spared." 60 John Knight, a successful Mississippi merchant
who suffered from a throat infection and dyspepsia, wrote his
wife from a water-cure in Pennsylvania that his health was good,
and that he was eating stale brown bread, rice, and either boiled
mutton or roast beef. He spurned coffee or any vegetable but
rice, and although he had had several"sudden, severe, but short
attacks of indisposition/' his doctors had told him the attacks
were "critical" and highly favorable. Indeed, he claimed that his
whole system was now under the full force and effect of the
water treatment. He wrote that the treatment left none of the
terrible after-effects of mercury and other medicines. 61
While the Water-Cure foumal is the most useful source of
testimonials for hydropathy as well as other sectarian cures, no
tabloid was immune from extolling cures wrought by water.
The Vicksburg, Mississippi, Weekly Sentinel joyously reprinted
a letter from the New Orleans Delta describing how cold water
could cure the most dreaded malady in the South, yellow
fever. 62 The Vidalia, Louisiana, Concordia Intelligencer extracted the following from aNew Jersey paper in support of hydropathy: "The watercure treatment of the various diseases to which
civilized humanity is subject, is assuming an importance of
which those who take [butJ slight notice of passing events, can
have but one conception. Less than a quarter of a century ago, it
was entirely unknown; and now water-cure Establishments
exist in every part of Europe and the U.S. throughout which
countries, it is crowned by a success unparalleled in the history
of the healing art .... The intelligence of the civilized world
seems enlisted in its favor."63
The paper's editor may well have had mercenary motives, for
in the same issue as this glowing review there appeared under
"Hydropathy Advertisement" the notice of a Dr. Gray, who had
moved his water-cure location to "Wild Wood Springs," twentythree miles east of Natchez. Gray claimed success in such acute
diseases as fevers, inflammation, measles, smallpox, scarlet
90
fever, whooping cough, as well as the following chronic diseases: debility, obesity, nervousness, neuralgia, epilepsy, insanity, gout, rheumatism, dysentery, diarrhea, headache, dyspepsia, disease of the spine, liver, and spleen, all skin diseases, all
female diseases, scrofula and consumption in the first stages,
hemorrhages, dropsy, white swelling and hip joint disease, and
all other minor diseases "too tedious to name." 64 Notwithstanding the amazing panoply of cures the doctor could handle,
he still required each patient to furnish on his own two coarse
linen and two cotton sheets, two thick blankets, two heavy
cotton comforts, three yards of coarse linen and three of cotton,
and four coarse linen towels. He also informed the readers that
"all diseases are Chronic, after they have continued 40 days." 65
In spite of the widespread popularity of water-cure therapy,
pessimistic reports concerning the validity of the single cure
system continued to appear in print, especially in American
medical journals, which took great delight in pointing out the
weaknesses or hazards of the system. 66 Oliver Wendell Holmes,
professor of anatomy at the Harvard Medical School, traced the
evolution of a water-cure practitioner, Dr. Bigel, through the cult
of allopathy to homoeopathy to hydropathy. John Townsend
Trowbridge, who spent some time in a water-cure institute,
complained of little benefit from the douching, soaking, or skin
friction to which he was subjected. While praising the restful
conditions provided by the institution, he bitterly denounced
the society of people inhabiting the water-cure whose invalidism was their chief interest in life and topic of conversation. 67
At Brattleboro, Vermont, the prominent abolitionist Thomas
Wentworth Higginson, decrying the inclement weather, wrote
that "we thought it best to take all the moisture together and so
we had a party of Hydropaths. Some came in tubs, other paddled
in punts, and the most desperate invalids came in douches
through the ceiling. We had large pails of water for supper. " 68
The American writer John W. DeForest, traveling in Europe and
"pursued by the fretting enmity of a monotonous invalidism,"
decided to consign himself to the water-cure at Griifenberg.
After describing his first wet sheet treatment he reported that
the attendant, Franz
91
engineered me into a side room, and halted me alongside of an oblong

cistern, brimming with black water, supplied by a brooklet, which fell
into it with a perpetual chilly gurgal. In a moment his practiced fingers
had peeled me like an orange, only far quicker than any orange was ever
yet stripped of its envelope. As I shuffled off the last tag of their humid
coil, the steam coiled up from my body as from an acceptable sacrifice,
or an ear of hot boiled com. Priessnitz pointed to the cistern like an
angel of destiny signing to my tomb, and I bolted into it in a hurry as
wise people always bolt out of the frying pan into the fire, when there is
no help for it. In a minute my whole surface was so perfectly iced that it
felt hard, smooth, and glossy; like a skin of marble.69
Complaining of the treatment, the climate, the institution's

regimen, and the food as "an insult to the palate and an injury to
the stomach," DeForest abandoned the water-cure. 70 Like DeForest, many inmates in American water-cures soon concluded
that there were aspects of the water-cure therapy as rigorous as
heroic medicine.
By the mid-1850s the water-cure mania had reached its crest.
The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal printed an article in
1850 on its downfall and reported that water was proving unsuccessful in the most thorough hydropathic institutes. 71 However,
this does not indicate that hydropathy disappeared, for the
vogue of the water-cure system lasted until the Civil War. Indeed, in an era peculiar for its pseudo-sciences, each enjoyed a
brief career which eventually yielded to more rational and consistent views. Advancing medical science was already proving
receptive to selecting the best of the pseudo-scientific practices
to incorporate into eclectic materia medica.
The fate of hydropathy was not its collapse or disappearance,
but rather its sublimation into the general hygienic cult. Its
claim to exclusiveness as a single cure system would be lost as it
merged into other health reforms. Dr. Russell Thacher Trall and
his followers, using hygiene as the motivation, superimposed
the cult of Grahamism upon it. 72 Dietetic regimen, exercise,
and hydrotherapeutic principles continue to be extolled as proper ingredients in maintaining holistic health even today. Not a
physical fitness center, health and beauty spa, or athletic training room fails to provide its patrons with some form of hydro-
92
therapeutic agent, be it a whirlpool bath, a swimming pool, or a

steam room. Medical science currently debates the validity of a
trend in European obstetrics which prescribes natural childbirth delivery underwater. 73 The availability of bottled mineral
water, spring water, or jugs of distilled water which line the
grocer's shelves, often at outlandish prices, gives continuing
testimony to the public's faith in the efficacy of water (and
distrust of public water supplies). Indeed, the humbugic aspects
of the water-cure may still be found, as in a contemporary
advertisement to "Add Up to 3 Inches to Your Bustline" with
the Hydrotherapy Contour Cup.74 The conclusion to be drawn
is that certain aspects of the pseudo-science of water-cure have
found an honored place in the mind-set of the American public,
and will remain. Some of the perceptions are medically and
scientifically valid, but those that are not will continue to
flourish because of the deep taproots of American egalitarianism best embodied in the phrase "Physician, heal thyself."
Notes--------------------------------------------1. R.T. Claridge, "Hydropathy; or the Cold Water Cure as Practised

by Vincent Priessnitz, at Griiefenberg, Silesia, Austria," Edinburg Medical and Surgical Tournai 58 (1842): 161.
2. Ibid.; "The Founder of the Cold-Water Cure," Boston Medical and
Surgical Tournal27 (Nov. 30, 1842): 282-86; "History of Vincent Priessnitz by Capt. Claridge," Water-Cure Tournai, n.s. 1 (Jan. 15, Feb. 1,
1846): 49-52, 65-68; John Forbes, "The Water-Cure, or Hydropathy,"
Western Tournai of Medicine and Surgery, n.s. 7 (1847): 38-47; and
Harry B. Weiss and Howard R. Kemble, The Great American WaterCure Craze: A History of Hydropathy in the United States (Trenton,
N.J.: Past Times Press, 1967), pp. 3-17.
3. A douche was a stream of cold water falling from varying heights
on the afflicted portion of the patient's body.
4. Claridge, "Hydropathy," p. 169; "Treatment of Disease by Cold
Water," Boston Medical and Surgical Tournai 23 (Sept. 16, 1840):
99-100.
5. Louis Fleury, "Hydrosudapathia, or a Therapeutic System Founded on the Combined Action of Cold Water and Exciting Cutaneous
93
Perspiration," Western Journal of Medical and Physical Sciences 12

(May; June, and July 1838): 134-35.
6. Claridge, "Hydropathy;" p. 164.
7. "Hydropathy in Germany: Griiefenberg and Priessnitz," Lancet 2
(1842-43): 275.
8. "Founder of the Cold-Water Cure," p. 283; "Hydropathy in Germany;" p. 276; "Editor's Remarks," Medical Examiner, n.s. 1 (April30,
1842): 280. The editor of the Medical Examiner was little surprised at
the presence of European nobility at Griifenberg and at Priessnitz's
"considerable reputation as a quack." But after reporting that the
water-cure proprietor had earned about 50,000, he was forced to concede: "We should not be surprised to hear of it in time in our own
country."
9. New Orleans Daily Crescent, March 11, 1851.
10. Berton Roueche, The Medical Detectives (New York: Times
Books, 1980), pp. 51-52.
11. DeBow's Commercial Review2 (Oct. 1846): 228-39.
12. Sam Kneeland, Jr., "Hydropathy; or the Use of Cold Water for the
Prevention and Cure of Disease," American Journal of Medical Sciences, n.s. 14 (1847): 76-77.
13. "Hydropathy;" Lancet, 1842-43, 2:814.
14. Water-Cure Journal, n.s. 2 (Sept. l, 1846): 111.
15. Water-Cure Journal, n.s. 3 (Aprill5, 1847): 125.
16. Robert Dick, "The Treatment and the Mal-treatment of Disease
by Water, Hot and Cold," Lancet, 1842-43, 1:241-44; "The Attempts to
Cure Everything with Water," Lancet, 1842-43. 2:415; R.S. Hutchinson, "Trial of Cold Water as a Remedy for Supposed Disease: Death:
Post-Mortem Appearances" Lancet, 1843-44, 1:511-12; "Hydropathy
Practiced Fatally amongst the North American Indians," Lancet, 184 7,
1:14; C.B. Garrett, "Hydropathy and Its Evils: Report of a Case," Lancet, 1849, 1:62; "Hydropathic Quackery: Alleged Death from the Imprudent Application of Cold Water: Inquest and Verdict," Lancet, 1849,
2:243-44.
17. "The Reviewer's Estimate of 'Hydropathy; or the Cold-Water
Cure,' "Lancet, 1846, 2:513.
18. "The Water Quackery in the Year 1736,'' New York Journal of
Medicine and the Collateral Sciences 7 (July 1846): 108-9; "Hydropathy: The Water Quackery in the Year 1736 as Described by the Celebrated Rousseau,'' Medical News 4 (Aug. 1846): 72-73.
19. "Water Quackery; 1736," pp. 108-9; "Hydropathy as Described
by Rousseau in 1736/' pp. 72-73.
94
20. "Cold Water Punishment in Prisons," Boston Medical and Surgicalfournal21 (Dec. 4, 1844): 366.
21. "The Water Cure: A Hydropathic Ballad," Medical News 1 (Sept.
1843): 101.
22. Frank Luther Mott, A History of American Magazines, 18501865 (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1938), p. 87.
23. Frank Luther Mott, A History of American Magazines, 17411850 (New York: Appleton, 1930), p. 441.
24. Madge E. Pickard and R. Carlyle Buley; The Midwest Pioneer:
His Ills, Cures etJ Doctors (New York: Henry Schuman, 1946), p. 218;
G.S. Rousseau, Tobias Srnollett: Essays of Two Decades (Edinburgh: T.
& T. Clark, 1982), p. 3; Cecil K. Drinker, "Doctor Smollett," Annals of
Medical History 7 (March 1925): 31-47.
25. Claude E. Jones, ed., u An Essay on the External Use of Water, by
Tobias Smollett," Bulletin of the Institute of the History of Medicine 3
(1935): 55. G.S. Rousseau describes Tobias Smollett's participation in a
controversy in English balneology which largely centered around the
sulphur content of the waters of English spas and their efficacy in the
treatment of disease (pp. 144-57).
26. /{Hydropathy: Itinerant Physicians," Lancet, 1841-42, 2:429-30;
review of Dr. A.B. Granville's The Spas of England, and Principal SeaBathing Places, Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine 49 (June 1841):
725-33; review of Richard J. Lane's Life at the Water-Cure; or, a Month
at Malvern: A Diary, Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine 64 (Nov. 1848):
515-42; /{The Monarch of Bath, Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine 48
(Dec. 1840): 773-92.
27. Joseph Wechsberg, The Lost World of the Spas (New York:
Harper & Row, 1979), pp. 10-45.
28. Christopher Ricks, Tennyson (New York: Macmillan, 1972), pp.
180-81; John W Dodds, The Age of Paradox: A Biography of England,
1841-1851 (London: Gollancz, 1953), p. 369; Alfred Lord Tennyson: A
Memoir by His Son, 2 vols. (London: Macmillan, 1897), 1:221.
29. Weiss and Kemble, Water-Cure Craze, p. 18; Pickard and Buley;
Midwest Pioneer, p. 219.
30. Wechsberg, Lost World of the Spas, pp. 180-205. A history of
balneology; particularly mineral springs and spas, parallels the story of
hydropathy; the following references should provide some understanding of their importance in America: Carl Bridenbaugh, "Baths and
Watering Places of Colonial America, William and Mary Quarterly,
3rd ser., 3 (April1946): 151-81; William Edward Fitch, Mineral Waters
of the United States and American Spas (Philadelphia: Lea and Febiger,
11
11
95
1927); S. Hoffius, "Healing Waters," Southern Exposure 6 (1978): 54-58;

Billy M. Jones, Health-Seekers in the Southwest, 1817-1900 (Norman:
Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 1967); Ruth Irene Jones, "Antebellum Watering Places of the Mississippi Gulf Coast," Journal of Mississippi History 18 (Oct. 1956): 268-301; H.A. Meeks, "Stagnant, Smelly and
Successful: Vermont's Mineral Springs," Vermont History 47 (1979):
5-20; Henry E. Sigerist, "American Spas in Historical Perspective,"
Bulletin of the History of Medicine 11 (Feb. 1942): 133-47; Henry E.
Sigerist, "The Early Medical History of Saratoga Springs," Bulletin of
the History of Medicine 13 (May 1943): 540-84; Henry E. Sigerist, "Rise
and Fall of the American Spa," Ciba Symposia 8 (1946): 327-36; C.B.
Thome, "The Watering Spas of Middle Tennessee," Tennessee Historical Quarterly 29 (1970-71 ): 321-59; and R. Woodlief, "North Carolina's
Mineral Springs," North Carolina Medical Journal25 (1964): 159-64.
31. Richard Harrison Shryock, Medicine and Society in America,
1660-1860(NewYork: NewYorkUniv. Press, 1960), p. 89; James Harvey
Young, "American Medical Quackery in the Age of the Common
Man," Mississippi Valley Historical Review47 (March 1961): 579-93.
32. Dr. Thomas L. Nichols, Forty Years of American Life, 2 vols.
(London: John Maxwell, 1864), 2:21; James C. Whorton, Crusaders for
Fitness: The History of American Health Reformers (Princeton:
Princeton Univ. Press, 1982), p. 137; Harold Donaldson Eberlem,
"When Society First Took Baths," Pennsylvania Magazine of History
67 (1943): 30-48.
33. "Joel Shew," Appleton's Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 6
vols. (New York: Appleton, 1888), 5:508-9; Russell Trall, "Death of Dr.
Shew," Water-Cure Journal20 (Nov. 1855): 104-5; Weiss and Kemble,
Water-Cure Craze, pp. 69-70; James C. Whorton, "Joel Shew, Dictwnary of American Medical Biography, ed. Martin Kaufman, Stuart
Galishoff, and Todd L. Sav1tt, 2 vols. (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood
Press, 1984), 2:677-78.
34. Weiss and Kemble, Water-Cure Craze, p. 70.
35. "Russell Thacher Trall, Appleton's Cyclopaedia of American
Biography 6:154; Weiss and Kemble, Water-Cure Craze, pp. 80-89;
Whorton, Crusaders for Fitness, pp. 138-40; Ronald Numbers, "Health
Reform on the Delaware, New Jersey History 92 (1974): 5-12; James C.
Whorton, "Russell Thacher Trail," Dictionary of American Medical
Biography 2:751.
36. Bertha Monica Stems, "Mary Sargeant Neal Cove Nichols and
Thomas Low Nichols," Dictionary of American Biography (1934)
13:495-97; William Walker, "The Health Reform Movement in the
11
11
11
96
United States," Ph.D. diss., The Johns Hopkins University, 1955, pp.
156-60; Weiss and Kemble, Water-Cure Craze, pp. 33-35, 72-80; Philip
Gleason, "From Free-Love to Catholicism: Dr. and Mrs. Thomas L.
Nichols at Yellow Springs," Ohio Historical Quarterly 70 (Oct. 1961):
283-307; Nichols, Forty Years of American Life; Bertha Monica Stems,
"Two Forgotten New England Reformers," New England Quarterly 6
(Nov. 1933): 59-84; Virginia G. Drachman, "Mary Sargeant (Neal) Cove
Nichols," Dictionary of American Medical Biography 2:552-53; John
B. Blake, "Mary Cove Nichols, Prophetess of Health," Proceedings of
the American Philosophical Society 3 (1962-63): 219-34.
3 7. Mott, History of American Magazines, 1741-1850, p. 441; Weiss
and Kemble, Water-Cure Craze, pp. 25-28.
38. Water-Cure Tournai, n.s. 1 (Jan. 15, 1845): 64.
39. John D. Davies, Phrenology: Fad and Science: A 19th-Century
American Crusade (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1955), p. 112; Weiss
and Kemble, Water-Cure Craze, p. 26; Whorton, Crusaders for Fitness,
p. 140.
40. Mott, History of American Magazines, 1850-1865, p. 87; Weiss
and Kemble, Water-Cure Craze, pp. 28-29. For other publications see
the following articles in the Boston Medical and Surgical Tournai:
"Water-Cure Journal," 31 (Nov. 20, 1844): 324-25; "Cold Water Cure,"
34 (Feb. 4, 1846): 21-22; "Journal of Hydropathy," 34 (March 4, 1846):
105; "Water Cure Reporter," 37 (Nov. 24, 1847): 345; "Water-Cure
Almanac," 39 (Sept. 7, 1848): 145-46; and "Water-Cure Era," 39 (Dec.
20, 1848): 426.
41. "Phrenological Hydropathy," Boston Medical and Surgica1Tournal34 (July 15, 1846): 485-86; Davies, Phrenology, p. 112.
42. "The Water-Cure Journal," Boston Medical and Surgical Tournai
39 (Aug. 9, 1848): 45-46.
43. Ibid., 43 (Dec. 25, 1850): 428.
44. Pickard and Buley, Midwest Pioneer, pp. 218-20; "Biographical
notice of a Manual of Hydrosudopathy, or the Treatment of Diseases by
Cold Water, Sweating, Exercise and Regimen; According to the method
employed by V. Priessnitz at Griifenberg, " Medical Examiner 3 (Aug.
15, 1840): 521-23; "A Letter on the Cold-Water Treatment of Priessnitz
at Griiefenberg," Medical Examiner, n.s.1 (June4, 1842): 360-61; Licentiate Elich, "Trial of the Cold Water System," Medical Examiner, n.s. 1
(Aug. 27, 1842): 551-55; "Cold Water Cure," Boston Medical and Surgical Tournai 27 (Sept. 28, 1842): 134-35; "Hydropathy, or the WaterCure: Its Principles, Modes of Treatment, etc." New York Tournai of
Medicine 4 (1845): 401-5; "New York Correspondence: Hydropathy,"
97
Boston Medical and SurgicalJournal35 (Nov. 18, 1846): 325-27; "The

Water-Cure," Boston Medical and Surgica1Journal35 (Jan. 13, 1847):
490-96.
45. Alice Felt Tyler, Freedom's Ferment: Phases of American Social
History to 1860 (Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press, 1944), p. 441;
D.C. Bloomer, Life and Writings of Amelia Bloomer (Boston: Arena
Publishing Co., 1895), pp. 65-81.
46. Pickard and Buley, Midwest Pioneer, p. 220; The Letters of
William Gilmore Simms, ed. Mary C. Oliphant et al., 5 vols. (Columbia: Univ. of South Carolina Press, 1952-55), 2:503; 4:570-71; Kneeland,
"Hydrotherapy," pp. 81-96; Fleury, "Hydrosudapathia," pp. 136-37; and
New York Journal of Medicine, 3rd ser., 7 (July 1859): 114-15.
_47. Forbes, "Water-Cure," pp. 42-43; "Biographical Notice of a Manual of Hydrosudopathy," p. 522.
48. "The Drinking of Water," Water-Cure Journal, n.s. 1 (Jan. 1,
1846): 35-36.
49. "Lavements and Injections," Water-Cure Journal, n.s. 1 (Jan.
1,1846): 36-37.
50. "Water-Cure," Scientific American 3 (May 6, 1848): 257; "Diet
Used at the Table d'Hote of Priessnitz," Boston Medical and Surgical
Journal 29 (Nov. 15, 1843): 308; "Biographical Notice of a Manual of
Hydrosudopathy," pp. 521-23; Forbes, "Water-Cure," pp. 42-43.
52. Forbes, "Water-Cure," pp. 42-43; John Duffy, "Medical Practice
in the Ante-Bellum South," Journal of Southern History 25 (Feb. 1959):
70; John Duffy, ed., The Rudolph Matas History of Medicine in Lomsiana, 2 vols. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Univ. Press, 1962), 2:39.
53. "Round-Hill Water-Cure Retreat," American Journal of Homoeopathy 3 (May 1, 1848): 12; "Water-Cure Establishment," New Orleans
Commercial Bulletin, May 21, 1853.
54. Vidalia (La.) Concordia Intelligencer, Oct. 2, 1852; "Waterford
Water-Cure Establishment," The Harbinger: Devoted to Social and
Political Progress 5 (June 26, 1847): 48; E. Douglas Branch, The Sentimental Years: 1836-1860 (New York: Appleton-Century, 1934), p. 264.
In a lengthy appendix authors Weiss and Kemble, Water-Cure Craze,
fully document the establishment of hydropathic institutions in the
United States, and the pages of the Water-Cure Journal are replete With
announcements of the openings of new water-cures.
55. "The Water Cure," Harbinger4(Dec. 12, 1846): 1; Mott, History
of American Magazines, 1741-1850, p. 441.
56. Edmund Wilson, Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the
98
American Civil War (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1962), pp. 28, 248.
57. Letters of William Gilmore Simms, 1:314.
58. William Gilmore Simms, "Hydropathy; or the Cold Water
Cure," Magnolia; or Southern Apalachian, n.s. 1 (Oct. 1842): 257.
59. Duffy, "Medical Practice," p. 69; Duffy, ed., Rudolph Matas
History, 2:38-39.
60. Duffy, "Medical Practice," p. 69; Duffy, ed., Rudolph Matas
History, 2:38.
62. Vicksburg (Miss.) Weekly Sentinel, Sept. 1, 1847; Jo Ann Carrigan, "Yellow Fever in New Orleans, 1853: Abstractions and Realities," Journal of Southern History 25 (Aug. 1959): 351.
63. Vidalia (La.) Concordia Intelligencer, June 19, 1852.
64. Ibid.
65. Ibid. In the October 2, 1852, issue, a friend of the editor gave a
glowing description of the Wild Wood Springs for interested readers.
66. "Water Curing," Boston Medical and Surgicalfournal29 (Jan. 3,
1844): 444; "The Water Workers," Boston Medical and Surgical Journal
34 (Feb. 25, 1846): 663; Blich, "Trial of the Cold Water System," pp.
551-55; "The Rising Humbug-Hydropathy," Medical News 1 (April
1843): 54-56; "Victim of Hydropathy-Death of Sir Francis Burdett,"
Medical News 2 (April 1844): 31-32; "Sketches and Illustrations of
Medical Delusions-Hydropathy," Medical News 6 (Sept. 1848): 87;
C.B. Garrett, "Hydropathy and Its Evils," Medical News and Library 7
(May 1849): 34-35; and "Death from the Effects of Cold Water Treatment," Western Journal of Medicine and Surgery, n.s. 6 (1846): 351.
67. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Medical Essays: 1842-1882 (Boston:
Houghton Mifflin, 1888), p. 91; John Townsend Trowbridge, My Own
Story: With Recollections of Noted Persons (Boston: Houghton Mifflin,
1904), pp. 199-200.
68. Mary Thacher Higginson, ed., Letters and Journals of Thomas
Wentworth Higginson, 1846-1906 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1921 ), p.
38.
69. Wilson, Patriotic Gore, pp. 674-75; James F. Light, fohn William
DeForest (New York: Twayne, 1965), pp. 29-31.
70. Wilson, Patriotic Gore, p. 675; Light, DeForest, pp. 29-31.
71. "Hydropathy Coming Down," Boston Medical and Surgical
fournal42 (July 31, 1850): 533-34.
72. Richard Harrison Shryock, "Sylvester Graham and the Popular
Health Movement, 1830-18 70," Mississippi Valley Historical Review
18 (Sept. 1931): 172-83; Stephen Nissenbaum, Sex, Diet, and Debility
99
in Jacksonian America: Sylvester Graham and Health Reform (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1980); Whorton, Crusaders for Fitness,
pp. 137-40; Ronald L. Numbers, "Do-It-Yourself the Sectarian Way," in
Judith Walzer Leavitt and Ronald L. Numbers, eds., Sickness and
Health in America: Readings in the History of Medicine and Public
Health (Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1978), p. 93.
73. "Giving Birth Underwater," Newsweek (Jan. 16, 1984), p. 70.
74. Undated advertisement in the author's clipping file.
ROBERT W. D E L P - - - - - - - - - -
5. Andrew Jackson Davis

and Spiritualism
Among the popular movements which characterized society in

mid-nineteenth century America was spiritualism. The discovery of a new science by which communication with the dead
could be achieved did not seem improbable to many optimistic
Americans who viewed innovative technical inventions and
listened to lecturers extol the limitless horizon of the human
mind. Spiritualism benefited, too, from the theories of Emanuel
Swedenborg, whose works portraying a progressive spiritual
world were frequently perused by curious Americans. Although
Shaker communities had experienced epochs of "spiritual visitation," the national interest and the magnitude of the phenomenon which erupted in 1848 were unprecedented_! In that
year two daughters of John D. Fox of Hydesville, New York,
insisted that they had heard rappings which they said originated
with the spirit of a peddler who had been slain and interred in
the cellar of their cottage. The girls responded to the peculiar
noises with raps of their own and were soon "conversing" with
the world of spirits. They left their rural home and, joined by a
third sister, became objects of great curiosity as they performed
before large audiences in Rochester and New York City. In spite
of ridicule and attacks by conservative religious forces, they
inspired others in many areas who attended seances or became
mediums who allegedly destroyed the barrier separating the
mortal from the immortal world. Soon automatic writing, table
Andrew Jackson Davis and Spiritualism
101
levitation, and the playing of "untouched musical instruments"

were common occurrences. 2 Spiritualism began and continued
to grow as an unguided and undisciplined movement without
creed or philosophy, depending only on the enthusiasm of its
devotees.
The philosophical foundation lacking in the frenzy of phenomenal spiritualism was provided largely by Andrew Jackson
Davis, whose efforts to give intellectual content to the erratic
movement consumed the major portion of his long life. Born in
the state of New York in 1826, he grew up an unlettered but
precocious young man who was reputed to possess a gift of
prophecy and an ability to diagnose clairvoyantly and prescribe
for disease. While still in his teens, he was popularly known as
the "Poughkeepsie Seer." Unlike many adolescents, he was
conscious of the atmosphere of change which altered the complexion of America in the Jacksonian period. He was aware of
the millennia! enthusiasm of William Miller and knew something of the theories of Emanuel Swedenborg and Charles
Fourier. On occasion he had also proved an adept subject for
those who experimented with the mysteries of mesmerism. In
1845, prior to the celebrated "Hydesville rappings" in 1848,
Davis and two associates, Dr. Silas Lyon, a physician with an
interest in hypnotism, and the Reverend William Fishbaugh, a
Universalist clergyman, traveled to New York City where, in a
hypnotic state, Davis delivered lectures which he announced
would herald the advent of a new "harmonia! dispensation." In
New York his "lectures" were transcribed and edited by Fishbough. Much attention was given in the press to the activities of
the youthful clairvoyant. Among others who heard him were
Edgar Allan Poe, Albert Brisbane, and George Bush, a professor
at New York University and a devoted Swedenborgian.
When Davis's disquisitions were completed in 1847, they
were published in a lengthy volume, Nature's Divine Revelations: The Principles of Nature, Her Divine Revelations, and a
Voice to Mankind. This initial work and an edition published in
England were financed by a well-to-do admirer, Mrs. Catherine
DeWolf Dodge. Later Davis made this "spirit sister" his wife,
although she was many years older than he. 3 She, too, wrote and
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ROBERT W. DELP
spoke in behalf of the "cosmic disclosures" brought to light by

her husband. 4 The Revelations embodied the Harmonia! Philosophy, a grandiose master plan for the reorganization and
reform of existing social, economic, and religious systems.
Davis maintained that his ideas represented the thought of
more refined societies of spirits living in other realms. Later, as
the Fox sisters created widespread excitement over their alleged
communication with the world of spirits, Davis claimed to have
foreseen these events and hailed them as harbingers of his
promised new dispensation. Although the term "spiritualism"
did not come into use until 1852, 5 the phenomenal elements
symbolized at Hydesville and the philosophical schema incorporated in the work of Andrew Jackson Davis were parents of a
growing and increasingly controversial movement which was
destined to influence American cultural history.
It is impossible to arrive at an accurate estimate of the numbers who in the 1850s were involved in spiritualism. Although
there were claims of eleven million believers, a recent scholar
suggests that there were more likely only several hundred thousand men and women who were to some extent interested in the
new "science." Most were scattered in the old Northwest, New
York, Ohio, and Massachusetts. 6 Groups of spiritualists were
soon holding frequent meetings in these regions. Most often the
gatherings were devoted only to the incessant search for demonstrations or "manifestations," but there were instances where
speakers were heard and reasonable discussion was paramount.
When, for example, Andrew Jackson Davis moved to Hartford,
Connecticut, in the early 1850s, he became part of an investigative circle for which he prepared a constitution declaring it a
Harmonia! Brotherhood dedicated to Universal Liberty, Fraternity and Unity. 7 He lectured regularly to the membership and
took issue with the theology of prominent clergy in that city.
His religious unorthodoxy was made clear at the well-publicized Hartford Bible Convention. 8 Local spiritualist groups
met in larger associations, and on various occasions Davis was
accorded a prominent position. In 1852 at a convention held in
Boston's Washington Hall, he was consecrated by John Murray
Spear, a Universalist convert to spiritualism, to the "harmon-
103
ial" work, "by everything that is noble, glorious and much to be

desired. "9 Afterwards he spoke to a spiritualist convention at
Worcester, Massachusetts, presided over by Adin Ballou, Universalist leader of the Hopedale Community in Massachusetts.
During his 1854lecture circuit of New York and New England, Davis believed his audiences showed a more appreciative
interest in the philosophic aspects of spiritualism than in the
more dramatic rappings and other methods of contacting the
dead. 10 His optimism, however, was not shared by many persons
who watched the erratic course pursued by thousands of the
faithful. In April 1854 Senator James Shields of Illinois, although derisive of spiritualism, was persuaded to introduce in
the United States Senate a Memorabilia containing fifteen thousand signatures petitioning that august body to make a thorough investigation of the current spiritual manifestations. 11
TheN ew York Herald expressed its sorrow to see "an otherwise
sensible man making a fool of himself" by bestowing consideration upon a topic it declared had been "pronounced by all sane
persons as the grossest delusion and humbug. " 12 Although
members of the Senate quickly relegated the giant petition to
the oblivion of the table, the repercussions of this irregular
move did not elevate the position of spiritualism in the public
mind. Even more startling was the effort of John Spear and other
spiritualists near Lynn, Massachusetts, to construct a perpetual-motion machine. After viewing the mechanism, Andrew
Jackson Davis lamented, "0, when will superstition die!" When
the day arrives for its entombment, he declared, "let us unite in
prayer that it may never experience a resurrection-never be
exhumed by the undeveloped and the imaginative!" 13
Spiritualism, however, did gain some respected adherents
who tirelessly labored to propagate the new theories of life after
death. Judge John Edmonds of the New York State Supreme
Court, after the death of his wife, attended seances and became
a medium. He was the recipient of alleged spirit messages and
wrote in a format that created the impression of scientific
investigation. 14 Nathaniel P. Tallmadge, elected to the United
States Senate from New York in 1833 and later appointed by
President John Tyler to be governor of the Wisconsin Territory,
104
ROBERT W. DELP
was another important convert to spiritualism. New Yorkers, in

1855, were startled by the spectacle of Edmonds and Tallmadge
demonstrating their faith in spiritualism before crowded audiences in the famous Broadway Tabernacle. Is Yet another wellknown figure who converted to spiritualism was Warren Chase,
originator of the Wisconsin Phalanx and a member of the
Wisconsin legislature, who kept a copy of Davis's Revelations on
his Senate desk and had additional copies for sale. 1 6
Andrew Jackson Davis, in the same year that Edmonds and
Tallmadge were appearing in New York, delivered a series of
lectures in Boston on the larger implicatons of the spiritualist
movement. Here he voiced the fear that spiritualism would be
adopted by the church and thus made respectable. "To become
respectable," he asserted, "is to become almost entirely opposed to the highest interests of the individual and race." 1 7 In
pressing his indictment of the church as the great enemy of
human progress, he predicted that it would ultimately fall.
Protestantism, he told his hearers, would be replaced by Roman
Catholicism, and a climactic religious struggle would take place
between the forces of Catholicism representing "monarchy"
and those of the Harmonia! Philosophy representing "wisdom
and love." At the conclusion of this titanic conflict, he said, a
new era would emerge when a full and complete communication would be established between earth and the other spheres.
Mankind, he held, would then be elevated and sanctified. 1 8
Davis's continued and sharp criticism of the church made him
the object of ridicule and scorn by representatives of traditional
Christianity. There were even those within the ranks of spiritualists who called for moderation. One of these, A. E. Newton,
editor of the New England Spiritualist, advised his readers that
Davis viewed theology and the doctrines of the church quite
differently from the way "our education compels us to view
them ... consequently he uses modes of expression which we
should not use." Although Davis often condemned in general
and severe terms, Newton remarked, "We think it more fitting
to use discrimination and kindly efforts to impart a higher and
truer interpretation." 19 Among the most vocal defenders of the
Boston lectures was William Lloyd Garrison, who thought they
105
were well expressed and extremely practical. Garrison further

asserted that he believed Davis completely true to his highest
convictions and utterly removed from arrogant dogmatism and
self-conceit. He praised him as "the wonder and admiration of
multitudes on both sides of the Atlantic" and contended that
had he been egotistical or self-seeking he might have claimed
superhuman powers and gathered around him followers who
were willing to accept him as an infallible source of knowledge
and a veritable messiah. 20
In 1855 Andrew Jackson Davis, following the death of his
wife Catherine, married Mary Robinson Love, a co-worker in
the field of reform. The couple resided in New York City, where
they enjoyed the patronage of William Green, Jr., a respected
citizen for whose family Davis often prescribed remedies for
physical maladies afflicting them. Davis was also the recipient
of frequent loans of money from his "harmonia! brother." 21
From his home in New York Davis continued his efforts in
behalf of spiritualism and in 1856 published The Penetralia and a
semi-autobiographical volume, The Magic Staff. In the former
work he emphasized the progressive and reformatory nature of
the nineteenth century and credited a growing affinity with the
spiritual world as the leading cause. In addition, he predicted
that spiritualism would prove beneficial in augmenting mechanical invention and improving man's standard of living.
Ultimately, he added, man would gain more leisure for the
pursuit of spiritual ends. 22
The publishing efforts of Davis did not deter him from becoming active in promoting greater cooperation among spiritualists. He and his wife served on the executive committee to
establish an association of spiritualists in New York. In April of
1857, at a meeting in Dodworth's Academy presided over by
Judge John Edmonds, it was decided to form the New York
Spiritual Association with a regular lectureship, a library, and a
reading room to be open day and evening. The new association
defined its purpose as the development and propagation of a
scientific, philosophical, and reformatory spiritualism and thus
placed itself, by implication, in opposition to the more sensational and radical forces. Davis and Edmonds were appointed to
106
ROBERT W. DELP
the lecture committee, while Mary Davis served on the finance

committee. The New York Association's initial lecture was
given by Davis, and he praised the new effort as a triumphal
archway to the successful liberalization of the leading minds of
the nineteenth century." He made it clear that he saw the work
in New York as an excellent opportunity to influence the
growth of spiritualism in other areas. 23 Davis, moreover, continued to join reform conventions in which speakers expounded
various theories of the regeneration of society. When it became
known that he was to address such a convention in Rutland,
Vermont, special trains brought throngs of interested people to
hear him. At least three thousand persons were reported to have
attended the sessions, at which Davis was the leading feature. 24
New York City was also the scene of Davis's attempt to begin a
newspaper, the Herald of Progress, which he published from
1860 to 1865. In the pages of the Herald he gave wide publicity to
schemes for improving the human condition. The Children's
Progressive Lyceum and the Moral Police Fraternity were designed to provide educational and recreational activities for
children and to deal with the increasing problems of crime and
poverty in New York. 25 The Lyceum was successful and by 1871
had spread to seventeen states and was beginning to make
inroads in the British Isles. 26 But the increasing population of
New York City and the enormity of the problems faced by the
Moral Police Fraternity led to its demise. Largely because of
financial difficulties the Herald of Progress published its last
issue early in 1865. An element in its failure may have been the
editor's lack of emphasis on spiritualist propaganda and on
accounts of communication with those who now dwelt in other
spheres. 27
However, as publisher, lecturer, and philosopher, Andrew
Jackson Davis was accorded a respectful hearing in the higher
councils of the American Association of Spiritualists, earlier
called the National Organization of Spiritualists, which, aside
from the short-lived Society for the Diffusion of Spiritual
Knowledge, was the only attempt to form a national organization before the 1890s. Whenever possible, he and his wife used
their influence to implant seeds of liberalism in this early at11
107
tempt at unity and to prevent its domination by mediums who

cared little for the philosophical moorings of spiritualism. At
the Philadelphia meeting in 1865 they helped subdue a move to
amend the convention's resolutions in a manner which would
have excluded "progressive reformers" and resulted in the admission of only "spiritualists." 28 At another meeting of the
national group, held in Cleveland, Ohio, in September 1867,
Davis played a significant role in an effort to prevent spiritualism from assuming a narrow or parochial stance. Here an
already apparent cleavage between the "philosophic" spiritualists and those emphasizing the phenomenal aspects of
their faith had become particularly apparent. Smouldering resentment burst into open warfare when the report of a committee on "spiritual phenomena" was presented to the convention
containing a frank criticism of the methods employed in the
performances of the celebrated Davenport brothers and other
mediums who were attracting considerable attention over the
country. So antagonistic was the convention toward the report
that it was decided to leave the document unprinted for a period
of one year. 29 Seeking to bring peace to the troubled waters of
spiritualism and yet redeem, as far as possible, a report with
which he heartily concurred, Davis rose to suggest that the
convention explain its refusal to accept the controversial statement by declaring that its action was motivated only by a desire
to "prevent misunderstanding of the value and reliability of
physical tests through mediums on both sides of the Atlantic,"
rather than a desire to stifle "free and discriminating investigation" of mediumistic demonstrations. The assent of the convention to Davis's motion at least prevented the group from
assuming a posture which was alien to the moderate course of
Davis and those who shared his views. Davis agreed to serve as a
member of the executive committee when the national body
met again in Rochester, New York, in August 1868. But his
silence was conspicuous when a motion was considered to
separate the Children's Progressive Lyceum from the American
Association of Spiritualists. It was Mary Davis who took the
lead in an unsuccessful attempt to halt a separation. 30
The victory of Davis's opponents left him further disillu-
108
ROBERT W. DELP
sioned with the definition of spiritualism accepted by the majority at general gatherings. Before an audience in 1869 which
included the Fox sisters, he asserted that spiritualism was not
organizable because, he declared, "it is a notification-because
it is an announcement." He predicted that those who attempted
to make of it an organized enterprise would find themselves
"astride a remarkable velocipede that requires ... skill to keep it
from tumbling upon and hurting them badly." 31 Pursuing his
enemies who sought to equate spiritualism with mediums and
seances, Davis published a bitter attack against this interpretation in The Fountain with Jets of New Meaning. This volume,
which appeared in 1870, provoked the denunciation of those
within the ranks of spiritualism who disagreed with him and
denied that he was a spiritualist. Davis countered his critics by
asserting that he was a spiritualist and when occasion demanded exercised the functions of a medium.32 His opinions
were made public in the moderate spiritualist journals the Religio-Philosophical foumal and the Banner of Light, which led the
way in raising several thousand dollars with which to honor him
on the occasion of his fiftieth birthday in 1876. The English
spiritualist publication the Medium also endorsed this effort
and referred to Davis as a "saint in the world's calendar." It
urged spiritualists everywhere to "love him and aspire to his
high estate. "33
But the mass of spiritualists disregarded this injunction. Instead of accepting the universal principles of the Harmonia!
Philosophy, they continued to indulge in and proliferate the
manifestations. One of the most controversial spiritualists to
attract public attention was one Mrs. Suydam, the "fire-test
medium," who before more than a thousand citizens of Chicago
was exposed as a fraud. Commenting on this and other similar
incidents one journalist exclaimed: "How long, 0, how long!
must Spiritualism carry its load of idots? When will its votaries
learn that the Spirit will not submit to be made the plaything
with which to amuse the rabble, or the instrument to put money
in the pockets of those who endeavor to speculate upon it?" 34
Davis presumably had "misguided" spiritualism in mind
when, in a speech before the anniversary celebration of New
109
York spiritualists on March 31, 1878, he became quite personal

in his criticism and thus precipitated a bitterly fought conflict
within the ranks of spiritualists. He spoke disparagingly of
Emma Hardinge Britten, well-known medium and early historian of the movement, and Madame Helen P. Blavatsky, founder
of Theosophy, whom he described as an outstanding example of
"magical spiritualism." 35 Following his address, Davis observed great confusion and much hostility in his audience, and
in an effort to calm the gathering his wife delivered a conciliatory message designed, he later wrote, to "extract the stinger from
the bee" her husband had set buzzing. However, Davis was not
deterred in his assaults on those who engaged in seances or
"dark circles," insisting that their very nature led mediums to
"deal with the occult, the mysterious, the sleight of hand, and
the deceptive." 36 In October of 1878 at two large assemblies of
spiritualists in Hartford, Connecticut, he told his audiences
that those who put no restraint on "spiritual circles" were in
danger of becoming mental and physical shipwrecks. 37 Davis
reached the conclusion that the two interpretations of spiritualism could no longer co-exist, and in December of 1878
organized the First Harmonia! Association of New York. As
chief lecturer, he sought to make a distinction between the
Harmonia! Philosophy and certain interpretations of modern
spiritualism. The former, he averred, had been inspired by
"celestial sources," and sought the elevation of the human state
through the advance of science, the inventions of "deep
thinkers," the work of artists, musicians, writers, and finally by
instructions received through mediums. In contrast, he observed, the latter could be summed up in one word, "manifestations." With heightened confidence he promised to pursue
the battle until the ranks of spiritualists were cleansed of the
"weakness and wickedness and absurdities which now infest
them." 38
The First Harmonia! Association of New York, true to its
dedication to the advancement of science, endowed a chair in
the United States Medical College of New York, an eclectic
school of medicine located in New York City. Davis matriculated at the college and emerged with doctorates in medicine
110
ROBERT W. DELP
and anthropology. Prior to his graduation, he submitted a thesis

entitled "The Reality of Imaginary Disease," in which he contended that "every cutaneous disease, every tumor, every disorganization in the substance or appendages or organs is in effect
disturbed and diseased psychical or spiritual force." The ordinary bodily functions, he maintained, "originated in, and depend upon corresponding processes going on in the mysterious
universe of invisible motion, life, sensation, and intelligence."
In short, Davis concluded, all psychical diseases except those
"mechanically and chemically, or accidentally" induced were
caused by disturbances in the "physical potencies. " 39 These
theories, he contended, were impressed upon him long ago by a
vision which brought another life breaking upon his horizon,
enabling him to see and hear by "spiritual sensation instead of
the optic nerve and ordinary processes of nature. " 40
While a student in medical school, Davis met and made
friends with Della E. Markham, an electic physician whose
services he sought during a period of illness. Soon rumors circulated that the two were engaging in an adulterous relationship. 4 1
The furor occasioned by the insinuations against him led Davis
to leave his duties as lecturer at the New York Harmonia!
Association and take an extended vacation in order to consider
his future personal and professional life. He decided to divorce
Mary, now the victim of a terminal illness, informing her that
they were not "mated in spirit" and that there were "true
conjugal counterparts" waiting somewhere for them. 42 In
Boston on his fifty-ninth birthday in 1885 Davis was married to
Della Markham. Later his new wife recounted that she had been
reared with an atheistic perception of life but, discontented, had
longed for "something or someone" who could show her the
true way out of "the night of mental errors, and the gloom of
ignorance, into the full and blessed light of day." 43 The answer
to these longings, she said, had come to her in intimations of the
Harmonia! Philosophy long before she was acquainted with her
future husband. 44
Davis's old spiritualist enemies used his divorce as a reason to
denounce him further and to deny that he was a true spiritualist.
Emma Hardinge Britten, in a letter to the New York Herald,
111
declared that Davis had never professed to be or allowed himself

to be called a spiritualist. On the contrary, she contended, she
had heard him repeatedly protest against the attempt to confound the Harmonia! Philosophy with spiritualism which, she
insisted, he uniformly denounced, ignored, and frequently
spoke of in terms of ridicule and insult. Once again Davis denied
the accusations and asserted his identity as a spiritualist. Indeed, said he, he was more than a spiritualist-namely a philosopher who had formulated the subtle laws by which spirits
made their communications to living organisms. 45 He further
informed his critics that if they did not cease their attacks he
would be forced to embark upon a work of self-justification
which, if accomplished, would make many wish that it had not
been undertaken. 46 Stung by the vituperative onslaughts of his
detractors, Davis and his bride moved from New York City to
Watertown, Massachusetts, where Davis, while writing his last
volume, Beyond the Valley, opened an office and practiced medicine, specializing in "diseases of the mind and body." 47 He used
the clairvoyant method of diagnosing disease and readily offered
counsel and advice to his patients. His ready wit and perceptive
understanding proved of real therapeutic value. Always benevolently inclined, he treated many in the Boston area who could
afford to pay little or nothing for his services. His generosity and
genuine altruism brought him the esteem and affection of thousands.48
While Davis enjoyed the relative obscurity of his new home,
the movement in which he had played a leading role declined in
significance. Protestant churches grew more liberal and accepted a more democratic interpretation of divine revelation, while
the scientific value of spiritualism was seriously questioned as
dishonest mediums continued to be exposed. 49 That the scientific contribution of spiritualism was not ignored, however, was
evident as an American Society for Psychical Research was
organized in the 1880s with the encouragement of William
James and the cooperation of several distinguished scientists.
The findings of the society's committee on spiritualistic manifestations were not encouraging. Committee members complained of the difficulty of finding mediums who were willing to
112
ROBERT W. DELP
submit to tests, and those who participated were often unable to

understand or correctly recall details of aa occurrence. Another
inhibiting factor in the scientific examination of alleged manifestations, said the committee, was the seance itself, where
because of darkness, fraud and deception were not easily recognized.50 The new scientific approach to spiritualism in the
United States was symbolized, too, by the Seybert Commission
of the University of Pennsylvania. Henry Seybert, an enthusiastic believer in spiritualism, presented the sum of sixty thousand dollars to the University of Pennsylvania on the condition
that it appoint a commission to investigate "all systems of
morals, religion, or philosophy which assume to represent
truth, and particularly modern spiritualism." 51 A committee of
professors examined several prominent mediums but in its preliminary report denied that it had discovered a single novel fact.
The secretary of the committee wrote that spiritualism must be
more convincing than slate writing and rapping. He referred to
these physical manifestations as but "the mere ooze and scum
cast up by the waves on the idle pebble." "The waters of a
heaven-lit sea, if it exist, must lie far out beyond," he concluded.
He predicted, however, that soon a class of spiritualists would
cast loose from these tactics, which, he indicated, were but little
removed from materialism.s2
The report of the Seybert Commission was roundly condemned by spiritualists. They benefited, however, from the
association of spiritualism with modern scientific investigation
and from the added publicity they received. Mediums continued
to materialize spirits, produce spirit photographs, and answer
questions posed by lonely and grief-stricken men and women
desiring some word from the "other side." When the National
Spiritualist Association was founded in Chicago in 1893, it
traced its origins to Davis's writings, but it was not the" class of
spiritualists" envisioned by the Seybert Commission or Andrew Jackson Davis. Rather, proliferating spiritualist groups
assumed the character of traditional evangelical churches. 53
Seldom was the name of Andrew Jackson Davis mentioned in
the literature of organized or unorganized spiritualism during
the remainder of the nineteenth century. With the beginning of
113
the twentieth century, however, when the disagreements of the

past had been largely forgotten, spiritualists again began to
inquire of him. Their journals consequently provided their readers with accounts of Davis's early life and contributions. The
notorious behavior of a particular segment of mediums and the
general unawareness by youthful spiritualists of their historical
roots made necessary a new emphasis on the historical and
philosophical background of the movement. "How many of the
younger converts to this heaven-born and earth-neglected gospel ever heard of Andrew Jackson Davis?" asked one editor. Yet,
he added, nothing had been written in the vast literature of
spiritualism, the Harmonia! Philosophy, Theosophy, or Christian Science that had not been foreshadowed by Davis. Had
spiritualists devoted themselves to the principles represented
by phenomena and less to the externals of "seeming manifestations," he avowed, the light Davis held aglow "would never have
grown dim." 54
Not only American but European spiritualists were reawakening to Andrew Jackson Davis's importance. James Robertson, a spiritualist writer of Glasgow; Scotland, published a
pamphlet, The Rise and Progress of Modern Spiritualism, in
which he pointed to the fulfilled prophecies of Davis as evidence of the authenticity of his revelations. He further praised
Davis as "one of the great marks by which the nineteenth
century would be judged and suggested that no single person in
the century has done so much to open wide the doors of spirit
life." 55 The aging Davis in Boston read with satisfaction these
tributes, which differed in such a pronounced manner from the
vilification directed at him only a few years earlier. He expressed his gratitude in a letter to a British spiritualist journal,
Light, which had recently printed his portrait and with it a
biographical summary. It was pleasant, he commented, to find
no reference to the long-continued gossip associated with his
name. He contended that it had never been his policy to correct
false allegations, believing in the truth of Whittier's words,
"Ever the right comes upmost, and ever is justice done." 5 6
The renewed interest in Davis as philosopher and seer resulted in a demand that a way be found to purchase, publish, and
114
ROBERT W. DELP
perpetuate his writings. Davis himself expressed on several

occasions a desire to have his books and stereotyped plates
transferred to friendly persons who would keep the list constantly in print. 57 Although plans for the preservation of Davis's
writings were never realized, other marks of honor and respect
in which he was held continued to encourage him. He was
particularly grateful upon reading an address delivered by E.
Wake Cook before the London Spiritualist Alliance on "genius
in the Light of Spiritualism," in which the British spiritualist
praised Davis for his unique powers and entered into a philosophical discussion of the underlying problem of seership and
spiritual inspiration. 5 8 The same author, on a trip to the United
States in 1904, requested an interview with Davis whom he
called the "Father of Modem Spiritualism and of those various
uplifting movements the golden threads of which are being
gathered together as the 'new' or the 'Higher thought.' "Cook
drove to Davis's Watertown home, where he discovered that the
latter had just returned from an unsuccessful attempt to find
him at his Boston hotel. Informed of Cook's absence, he had
walked back to his residence-a distance of some six miles.
There Cook discovered him "bright, young, and alert as ever, his
face radiant with knowledge, love and charity." After his conversation with Davis he wrote enthusiastically, "I feel inclined
to sing the 'Nunc Dimittis' now that mine eyes have seen that
the man is worthy of his glorious message." 59 E. Wake Cook was
destined to play a major role in securing the reputation and
position of Davis in modem spiritualism and in explaining
philosophically the theories he propounded.
As the first decade of the twentieth century wore on, increasing attention was devoted to Davis in the spiritualist press of
Great Britain and the United States. Enlarged portraits and
laudatory remarks were carried on his birthdays and when, on
his birthday in August 1909, the limitations of age made it
necessary for him to retire from his medical practice, he experienced the satisfaction of knowing that sixty-two years after his
startling Revelations he was again remembered, honored, and
revered. On January 13, 1910, Davis died at his home in Watertown. The Boston Globe led the way by describing him as "the
115
representative Spiritualist of the world." "His reputation," it

reported, "was that of thinker, teacher, and prophet." His followers, millions of spiritualists in various countries, it lavishly
claimed, almost worshiped him. In nearly every spiritualist
home, stated the newspaper, could be found a copy of his Divine
Revelations, a book of the "most startling propositions" regarding the spirit world.60
In assessing the place of Andrew Jackson Davis in the history
of modem American spiritualism, it is important to remember
that he was a product of the age in which he lived. He rose to
fame in the 1840s and reflected an era which Alice Felt Tyler has
christened one of "restless ferment." 61 In that experimental
period of change, transition, and boundless hope, Davis reflected the basic American millenarian tradition. Excited by the
Millerite enthusiasm of 1843, he delivered his Revelations
somewhat later, when Fourierism and Swedenborgianism preserved the same dream of a new heaven and a new earth. Davis
also shared a not uncommon belief that the New World provided
an appropriate setting for the millennium. Writing in 1885, he
stated that "when America is contemplated with an interior
vision ... she is seen to be a supernal promise of the happiest
land-the foundation and perfect prophecy of a true Spiritual
Republic."6 2 The vision Davis brought to light was typical of
the restless American democracy. One recent scholar has written that Davis did not urge people to lie back and listen to spirits
but to act. Spiritualism, for him, was only another branch of
knowledge designed to better the quality of human life, much as
science and technology were attempting to do. In his opposition
to religious sectarianism, the clergy; the unfair accumulation of
property; and social distinctions, the harmonia! philosopher, the
same writer maintains, "wanted perfect human beings and the
millennium." "When the spirits gave such advice," he concludes, "they were telling Americans to live up to their own
ideals." 63 In his expectation of a millennia! era, Davis was in
accord with general Christian tradition. Also, like many Christian millenarians, he declared that the stimulus for such a
perfected epoch must come from forces exterior to the earth.
Societies of departed spirits in other worlds, he maintained,
116
ROBERT W. DELP
were guiding humanity toward a destiny of boundless hope and

achievement. With the advent of the purported spiritual communications at Hydesville, New York, he sensed the beginning
of the "good work" 64 and in his own day noted that mankind,
under spiritual guidance, had reached a position where "the
mental sky is fast becoming clear and serene; and the scene is
one of grandeur and sublimity." 65 Similarity between Davis's
definition of the "harmonia! age" and Christian millennia!
thought, however, is more superficial than actual. He did not
agree, for example, with the Christocentric doctrine implicit in
traditional millennia! speculation. The person of Christ was
irrelevant, said Davis, but the coming day was hastened whenever men acted upon the" Christ-Principle," which he described
in terms of "loving forgiveness, womanly gentleness, and a
hospitality of soul." 66 These, he believed, would be united in
the "harmonia! brotherhood," which would encompass men
and women in "every age and clime," who followed the eternal
principles of" Association, Progression, and Development" and
taught the "fixed laws of Science and the immortal principles of
Philosophy." 67
In addition to his lectures and the publication of a newspaper
and more than thirty volumes, he created a "lyceum" for children and a "fraternity" to elevate the morals of New York City
and, implicitly, other growing metropolitan areas. These innovative groups, he taught, would be influential in advancing a
new and better day for all men. The controversial spiritual
manifestations were for Davis simply one facet of the broader
and more universal truth of the Harmonia! Philosophy. Although he participated in early efforts to organize a national
spiritualist association, he soon tired of the domination of those
whose primary interest lay in dramatic exhibitions. He was
more content at "reform conventions" where with spiritualist
and non-spiritualist advocates of social change he perceived the
advent of a new dispensation.
While other authors of nineteenth-century religious works
became leaders of new religious movements, Davis never aspired to occupy such a position. In 1884 he remarked, "For
myself I have no ambition to be a chieftain; no desire to be any
117
man's leaderi but I do enjoy the delights of teaching the principles of the Harmonia! Philosophy." 68 E. Wake Cook echoed the
same theme when two years before Davis's death he wrote that
the latter "always shrank from the position of leader of a new
religion .... " He desired, said Cook, "fellow-workers, fellow-investigators, not sheeplike followers." He insisted, though, that
by the right of priority and the importance of his work, Davis
was the "Father of Modern Spiritualism." 69
As we have seen, American spiritualists in the first quarter of
the twentieth century generally shared the reawakened interest
in Andrew Jackson Davis.7 However; no leader so persistently
dedicated to his memory or thought arose on this side of the
Atlantic. Older spiritualists in America remembered the years
of conflict when Davis had denigrated the majority who were
either mediums or chiefly interested in that phase of spiritualistic activity. The poorly educated masses, understandably,
could not comprehend the philosophical tomes which Davis
produced in profusion. Instead, they chose the excitement of the
seance in preference to the lengthy and complex theories that he
clothed in an often esoteric vocabulary. In spite of assertions
that he was not a spiritualist, Davis forcefully insisted that he
was a medium who communed with those existing in the
realms of departed spirits. He believed, however, that true spiritualism implied a great deal more than contacting or communing with those who had once lived on earth. Instead, it was a
means of illuminating the darkness of earth with the light of
distant realms even then moving earth toward the dawn of a new
and brighter day. His imagery may be obscure to those in a less
optimistic centuryi but Davis's life, characterized by extraordinary personal growth and maturity, epitomized the spirit of his
age.
Notes--------------------------------------------1. Emma Hardinge Britten, Modern American Spirituahsm (New

York, 1870) remains important because of the author's association with
the nineteenth-century movement as a medium and historian. A significant account is George Lawton, The Drama of Life After Death
118
ROBERT W. DELP
(New York, 1932). A recent and valuable treatment of spiritualism and

its subsequent influence on psychic investigation to the present is R.
Laurence Moore, In Search of White Crows: Spiritualism, Parapsychology and American Culture (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1977).
Gates Brown, Jr., "Spiritualism m Nineteenth-Century America"
(Ph.D. diss., Boston University, 1973), and Ernest Isaacs, "History of
Nineteenth Century American Spiritualism as a Religious and Social
Movement" (Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin, 1975), are thorough
studies. The place of spiritualism in the history of American reform is
evaluated in Ronald G. Walters, American Reformers, 1815-1860 (New
York, 1978). Howard Kerr and Charles L. Crow, eds., The Occult in
America: New Historical Perspectives (Urbana, 1983) relates spiritualism to other nineteenth- and twentieth-century religious, social,
and scientific developments. Helpful references to Andrew Jackson
Davis are contained in Allen Johnson and Dumas Malone, eds., Dictionary of American Biography, 20 vols. (New York, 1928-36), 5:105;
Amy Pearce Ver Nooy, "Dutchess County Men: Andrew Jackson Davis,
the Poughkeepsie Seer," Year Book of the Dutchess County Historical
Society 32 (194 7): 39-62; Jan McCarthy, "Andrew Jackson Davis: The
Don Quixote of Spiritualism," Southern Speech Journal 30 (Summer
1965): 308-16. The contribution of Davis is assessed in Robert W Delp,
"Andrew Jackson Davis: Prophet of American Spuitualism," Journal of
American History 54 (June 1967): 43-56; idem, "Andrew Jackson
Davis' Revelations: Harbinger of American Spiritualism," New York
Historical Society Quarterly 60 (July 1971 ): 211-34; idem, "A Spiritualist in Connecticut: Andrew Jackson Davis, the Hartford Years,
1850-1854," New England Quarterly 53 (September 1980): 345-62.
Manuscript collections relative to Davis include Andrew Jackson
Davis Papers (Yale University Library) and Anti-Slavery Letters Written
to William Lloyd Garrison and Others (Boston Public Library).
2. Moore, White Crows, p. 15.
3. Andrew Jackson Davis, The Magic Staff: An Autobiography of
Andrew Jackson Davis (Boston: Bela Marsh, 1857), p. 416.
4. Catherine Davis to William Green, Jr., Dec. 22, 1849, Davis Papers.
5. Isaacs, "History," p. 103.
6. Brown, "Spiritualism," p. 112.
7. Spirit Messenger (Springfield, Mass.), June 21, 1851.
8. Delp, "Spiritualist."
9. Rochester Democrat, Aug. 12, 1852. Later Davis was critical of
Spear's more radical interpretation of spiritualism. See Andrew Jackson
Davis to William Green, Jr., Aug. 22, 1855, Davis Papers.
119
10. Andrew Jackson Davis, Memoranda of Persons, Places, and

Events (Boston: William White & Co., 1868), p. 182.
11. E.W Capron, Modern Spiritualism: Its Facts and Fantasies, Its
Consistencies and Contradictions (Boston, 1855), p. 363. See Isaacs,
"History," pp. 195-98.
12. New York Herald, April 24, 1854.
13. Spiritual Telegraph 5 (1855): 188.
15. New York Tiibune, Feb. 19, 1855.
16. Frank Podmore, Modern Spiritualism: A History and a Criticism (London: Methuen and Co., 1902), 1:209.
17. New England Spiritualist (Boston), May 26, 1855.
18. Ibid., Aug. 10, 1855.
19. Ibid., May 26, 1855.
20. Liberator (Boston), Aug. 31, 1855.
21. Davis to William Green, Jr., May 14, 1851, July 8, 1856, Davis
Papers.
22. Andrew Jackson Davis, The Penetralia (Boston: Bela Marsh,
1872), p. 71.
23. Spiritual Age (New York City), May 2, 1857.
24. New York Times, June 29, 1858.
25. Delp, "Andrew Jackson Davis."
26. Medium (London), June 24, 1870.
27. Andrew Jackson Davis, Beyond the Valley: A Sequel to "The
Magic Staff": An Autobiography of Andrew Jackson Davis (Boston:
Colby & Rich, 1885 ), p. 81.
28. Religio-Philosophical Journal (Chicago), Nov. 4, 1865.
29. New York Times, Sept. 13, 1867.
30. Banner of Light (Boston), Jan. 2, 1869.
31. Ibid., April24, 1869.
32. Ibid., April 15, 1871.
33. Medium, Aug. 4, 1876.
34. Religio-Philosophical Journal, March 23, 1878.
35. Davis, Beyond the Valley, p. 132.
36. Religio-Philosophical Journal, June 22, 1878.
37. Ibid., Nov. 2, 1878.
38. Ibid., Feb. 1, 1879.
40. Religio-Philosophical Journal, Sept. 15, 1883.
42. Carrier Dove (Oakland, Calif.), Oct. 1886, p. 236.
43. Della Davis, Stamos (Boston: Colby & Rich, 1891), p. 4.
120
ROBERT W. DELP
44. Ibid., p. 6.
45. New York Herald, Jan. 17, 1885.
46. Carrier Dove, Oct. 1886, p. 255.
47. Ibid., p. 236.
48. Light: A Journal of Spiritual and Psychical Research (London) 30
(Feb. 5, 1910): 60.
50. "Formation of the Society," Proceedings of the American Society for Psychical Research 1 (July 1885): 232.
51. Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University of Pennsylvania to Investigate Modern Spiritualism (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1887), p. 5.
52. Ibid., p. 159.
53. Clifton E. Olmstead, History of Religion in the United States
(Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1960), p. 517.
54. Banner of Light, March 23, 1901.
55. Light, Aug. 9, 1902.
56. Ibid., Sept. 27, 1902.
57. Banner of Light, March 21, 1903.
58. Ibid., Aug. 15, 1903.
59. Ibid., Nov. 19, 1904.
60. Boston Globe, Jan. 13, 1910. Davis was honored not only in the
United States and Great Britain but in Germany. He corresponded with
an association of spiritualists in Leipzig under the leadership of Professor Johann Zollner. The German group renounced superstition and
declared its intention to advance and elevate the German people and to
propagate the "fundamental principles of immutable natural laws as
produced in the Great Harmonia by Andrew Jackson Davis and the
cognate branches of pure spiritualism." See Religio-Philosophical {ournal, Jan. 24, 1880.
61. Alice Felt Tyler, Freedom's Ferment: Phases of American Social
History from the Colonial Period to the Outbreak of the Civil War
(New York, Harper and Brothers [Harper Torchbooks]1962), p. 1.
63. Walters, American Reformers, pp. 168-69.
64. Davis, Memoranda, p. 100.
65. Davis, The Philosophy of Spiritual Intercourse (Boston: William
White, 1872), p. 294.
66. Davis, Penetralia, p. 69.
67. Davis, The History and Philosophy of Evil (Boston: Colby &
Rich, 1877), pp. 140-41.
68. Religio-Philosophical Tournai, Aug. 16, 1884.
121
69. The Sunflower (Lily Dale, N.Y.), Jan. 4, 1908. R. Laurence Moore
suggests that although Davis's efforts went against the major thrust of
American spiritualism, "insofar as spiritualist leaders were able to
develop a set of teachings beyond the mere claim that the dead return,
Davis deserved the major share of credit." White Crows, p. 10.
70. See, for example, Margaret Vere Farrington, Andrew Jackson
Davis and the Harmonial Philosophy (Boston: Spiritual Journal, 1912).
ARTHUR W R O B E L - - - - - - - - - -
6. Phrenology as Political Science
"All institutions must be calculated upon a knowledge of human

nature; otherwise they cannot be permanent."
-Johann G. Spurzheim
During his 1838-40 lecture tour of most of the major cities of the
east coast, George Combe, the noted Scottish phrenologist and
founder of the prestigious Edinburgh Phrenological Society,
spoke thirteen times on "The Application of Phrenology to the
Present and Prospective Conditions of the United States."
Combe's address was an exceptionally able piece; it avoided
Frederick Marryat's bemused detachment and Harriet Martineau's officiousness in describing American life and prospects. A candid and even-handed critic of American society,
Combe tempered criticism with modest optimism about the
future of American democracy. He described American national
character, assessed the strength of democratic institutions, and
proposed some measures to ensure a stable and lasting system of
democracy-all according to the precepts of phrenology. 1
His address represented the first extended attempt to remove
political theory and practice from the realm of philosophic
speculation and bring democratic government under the purview of a Baconian "science." Compelled by the thought that
America was engaged in a "vast moral experiment," 2 Combe
believed this country's destined brightness (not sufficiently appreciated, he felt, by Tocqueville) could be hastened and insured
with phrenology's guidance. So skillfully did Combe combine
Phrenology as Political Science
123
theory with specific recommendations that little doubt was

left, at least among his auditors, regarding phrenology's potential use for political discussion. The Ladies' Companion judged
Combe's "Application," with the exception of Tocqueville's
work, "the most sound and able exposition of America and her
institutions which ever proceeded from the pen of any foreign
traveller." In city after city where Combe lectured, resolutions
were unanimously passed like that of the New York Phrenological Society; which declared phrenology "eminently calculated ... to improve the institutions of society and of government, and to elevate the condition of the human race." 3
Combe's discourse was neither fanciful nor singular. Phrenology's potential for political theory had been recognized as
early as 1822 when the Philadelphia Journal of the Medical and
Physical Sciences observed that phrenology could be an invaluable guide in extirpating "tyrannical customs" and checking
imperfect legislation. Several periodicals during the next decade-Knickerbocker Magazine, Eclectic Journal of Medicine,
and New England Magazine-ventured similar sentiments. 4
Other phrenologists also asserted phrenology's relevance for
political discourse. During his ill-fated 1832 tour of this country; Johann Gaspar Spurzheim discussed political theory in his
lectures on "Liberty" and "On Education." The greatest of
American phrenologists, Orson Squire Fowler, whose career
spanned forty years of aggressive phrenological entrepreneurship from the 1840s onward, regularly and systematically fused
roman tic Jacksonian optimism and American millennia! expectations with phrenological prescriptions.
That phrenology; a science of the mind, came to have relevance for political discussion and a host of budding social sciences is logical. Interested primarily in cerebral physiology;
phrenology's founder, Franz Josef Gall, investigated the brain's
anatomy and proposed a theory of cerebral localization which
argued that: 1) the brain is the organ of the mind; and 2) the
mind is a composite of thirty-seven independent faculties, propensities, and sentiments, each being governed by a corresponding organ located in a determinable area or region of the brain.
To each of these faculties he assigned a colorful rubric such as
124
ARTHUR WROBEL
Conscientiousness, Self-Esteem, Spirituality, or even Destructiveness, their sum total comprising the whole of man's intellectual, moral, and affective character. An examination of the
cranium's contour, he believed, could reveal the size and thereby
the power or strength of the organs located in that area. 5 In
asserting that psychological functions possessed some definitive form of representation in the brain, Gall laid the groundwork for phrenology's future role as a pervasive force in educational practice and social theory.
His immediate disciple, Johann Gaspar Spurzheim, helped
erect part of this superstructure. A physician by vocation but a
philosopher by avocation, Spurzheim argued that man's faculties were given for salutary ends within a wholly benevolent
design. He attributed evil to an imbalance among the faculties
(unlike Gall, who believed violence originated in man's constitution) and even argued that specific faculties, sentiments, or
propensities could be consciously strengthened or inhibited.
Not only did this give phrenology a specific psycho-behavioristic dimension, but it paved the way for unlimited human
improvement.
Spurzheim's optimistic revisionism drew George Combe to
the movement. More interested in human psychology than in
his legal practice, Combe saw in Spurzheim's brand of phrenology a lucid exposition of the mind's structure and operation.
But, more importantly, he detected the makings of a natural
philosophy. Evils, Combe taught, arise not from any flaw in
man's constitution but from man's violations of natural lawsthose of external nature or his own-through either ignorance
or willful disobedience. Happiness ensues when men and their
institutions conform to nature's eternal laws in accordance
with universal purpose.
By the time phrenology arrived on these shores in the early
1830s, it had all but ceased being primarily a medical science.
Rather, it came to resemble a social science, its bright and
cheerful patchwork of scientific, religious, and moralistic doctrine promising a rationalistic means for describing man's place
in society and his relation to nature's laws.
The Fowler brothers, Lorenzo Niles and Orson Squire, severe-
125
ly damaged phrenology's hard-won reputation among the leading members of America's medical and academic communities-Benjamin Silliman, Joseph Story; Samuel Gridley Howe,
John Bell, John C. Warren, Josiah Quincy; and Horace Mann.
Ignoring phrenology's startling medical discoveries about the
anatomy of the human brain and its orthodox philosophical
underpinnings, the Fowlers quickly seized on phrenology's
schematization of the human mind to make practical the analysis of a person's character through a "head-reading." They asserted that the various faculties and their actions on one another
could be scientifically gauged and regulated for the purpose of
modifying human behavior. To many this turn appeared as just
so much quackery; but an equally large number of people were
enthralled. 6 To the latter, phrenology was "useful knowledge"
valuable for solving problems ranging from career choices and
human behavior to restructuring social life-education, religion, the fine arts, treatment of the insane and, of course,
government, the subject of this essay.
Its champions gained much in promoting phrenology as a
science with political bearing. Considering the newness of the
American democratic experiment, interest in political theory
flourished in this country; though available treatises on the
science of government were woefully inadequate. What American thinkers longed for was a science of politics as exact as
Newton's discovery of the laws of the physical universe and
Locke's discoveries of the laws of human nature. What they got
was another matter. Rather than hard and fast axioms, they had
to settle for shifting moralistic maxims; instead of science,
conventional wisdoms acquired from the study of political
thinkers from the ancients onward. They nevertheless remained expectant; John Adams's writings abound in references
to "the divine science of politics"; Thomas Jefferson recommended reading Montesquieu and Locke to gain an understanding of "the science of government"; and George Washington left
both land and money for the establishment of a "national university" where young men could " 'acquire knowledge in the
principles of politics and good government.' "7
Their expectations, however, outdistanced existing realities.
126
ARTHUR WROBEL
Even the writings of the Scottish academic philosophersHutcheson, Hume, Smith, Reid, Kames, and Ferguson-which
had trained the spokesmen of the Revolution and the framers of
the Constitution, were deficient. Their authors' critical method
was historical-comparative synthesis; these writers consulted
the literary and philosophical works of earlier ages in order to
uncover universal principles of human nature common to men
of all nations and ages. Such studies, Hume asserted, allow
political philosophers to make predictions about legislation
"almost as general and certain ... as any which the mathematical
sciences will afford us." In this way, he rashly asserted, politics
"may be reduced to a science." Hardly. Not only did Hume's socalled science of politics lack a "scientific" methodology, but it
was even akin to philosophy. Worse, philosophers themselves
had recently fallen into disrepute; George Washington and other
leaders viewed them with suspicion as the very authors of the
Terror in France and the continent's ensuing calamaties. 8
While these early leaders feared contamination of unrest
from abroad, conservatives during the first half of the nineteenth century viewed the threat of internal unrest with equal
alarm. In their darkest moments they suspected the very nature
of democratic government as flawed. Liberty too quickly degenerated into rank license, in their estimation, and mobility into
social instability and even anarchy. Further, the Revolution left
the democratic majority suspicious of all traditional authorities. What was to be the nucleus, they wondered, around which
the atoms comprising a society were to revolve in orderly and
stately fashion?
To many, phrenology had the best if not the only prospects for
being a legitimate science of politics. That its doctrines were
compatible with the American experience to date, having
tapped the same philosophical sources as the speculative writings of the revolutionary period, made phrenology especially
compelling. It postulated a deistic cosmos of natural laws that a
benevolent Deity created as the foundation upon which men
could build an orderly and permanent society. It also gained a
heavy infusion of Scottish philosophy under George Combe. In
combining natural theology with Baconian induction and Scot-
127
tish common sense philosophy; phrenology represented intellectual orthodoxy.9 Believing they uncovered a causal relation
between cranial developments, human behavior, forms of government, and nature's laws, the phrenologists were prepared to
determine for Americans whether the national republican compact, as formulated by the founding fathers, was scientifically
true and founded on natural law. Further, as a comprehensive
psychology; it seemed logically equipped to define, establish,
and maintain the social order appropriate to a republican government.
Predictably; phrenology attracted a spectrum of adherents
with widely differing political persuasions, from conservatives
seeking ways to check the vicissitudes of the unruly masses to
visionary democrats wishing to enlarge personal freedoms and
reduce the presence of government by identifying those few and
universal laws upon which lasting government was said to rest.
Its doctrines also appealed to those many reformers who taught
that evil stemmed from a faulty social environment and legislative codes that ran counter to nature's precepts. To Americans
with millennia! expectations, phrenology also promised to
guide this country to the Great Republic now that the mysterious laws of mind and nature had been unraveled.
Whatever their political or ideological convictions, nobody
questioned the doctrine of natural law. In the writings of Locke,
Condorcet, Volney; Hutchinson, and Reid, the authors of the
American Constitution found broad philosophical principles
for transmuting the theory of natural law into the practice of
democracy. 10 In his Defense of the Constitutions of Government
John Adams proudly stated that "The United States of America
have exhibited perhaps, the first example of government erected
on the simple principles of nature"; he reasoned elsewhere that
there is no other source "for the theory or practice of government" except in "nature and experiment, unless you appeal to
revelation." The so-called book of nature, however, was a difficult one to read. Even Spurzheim conceded as much: "It is
certainly a difficult task to discover clearly the law established
by Nature, and to bring all branches of legislation into harmony
with the Creator's will." 11 Phrenology volunteered its exper-
128
ARTHUR WROBEL
tise, promising to do so according to the principles of scientific

induction. In the process, Combe, the Fowler brothers, and
other followers of phrenology applauded some of America's
most precious national beliefs: that every individual has a right
to liberty and equality; that government's activities should be
restricted, and that man's and society's potential for development is unlimited.
In their study of natural law the phrenologists found confirmation of the conclusions urged in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century treatises-that man's welfare lay in civilized
society; not in an untrammeled romantic statelessness. O.S.
Fowler, editor of the American Phrenological Journal, sounds
Shaftsburyean when he writes that man is "a congregating,
associating, social being." 12 Judge Elisha P. Hurlbut of the Supreme Court of New York and the vice president of the New
York Phrenological Society; held the same view. Writing under
the by-line "By a Phrenologist," Hurlbut contributed a two-part
series to the Democratic Review entitled "On Rights and Government." He asserted that "the state of civilization is the true
natural condition of the human race." 13 Only in the safety and
order of civilization is man's nature fully exhibited, his faculties
permitted to reach their highest development, and his intellect
to grow. Civilization enhances the individual's and mankind's
progress.
But the writers part company with this tradition over what
form of government could best expedite progress. Gall's conservatism, no doubt, would have inclined him toward the crown
as the sole means of maintaining civil order. Spurzheim avoided
sanctioning any particular form of government, concluding
rather that the best government is that which is best suited to its
peoples' intellectual and moral character. In fact, he doubted
whether human nature, in any of the civilized nations, was
sufficiently developed for true republicanism "where every one
sacrifices his private interest to the common welfare." Combe
and Fowler, however, repudiated monarchical government. For
them postulating a chain of hierarchy in nature that sanctions
monarchy with its attendant abuses-the maintenance of a
profligate peerage and a toadying established church-ignores
129
the demonstrable truths of human and external nature. 14 Proof

that self-government is an inalienable right, an ordinance of
nature, lay in the very existence of certain faculties-Intellectuality, Conscientiousness, and Self-Esteem.l 5
While Combe and Fowler based their argument on phrenological premises, their reasoning is indistinguishable from
the faculty-psychology contemporary writers used in discourses
on American government. For instance, the argument of "The
Course of Civilization," featured in the Democratic Review;
defines democracy as "that condition of society which secures
the full and inviolable use of every faculty." This reads no
differently from Judge Hurlbut's definition of human rights as
the gratification of "every innate power and faculty of the
mind. "16 George Combe's essay "The Applicaton of Phrenology" is a specific inquiry into the ways different forms of
government influence "the virtuous activity of all the faculties. " 17 On these grounds he criticized the paternalistic despotisms in Austria and Prussia. When the press is censored, a
national church and hereditary peerage maintained, and citizens excluded from the legislative processes, 18 the organs of
Intellectuality, Self-Esteem, and Conscientiousness atrophy.
Walt Whitman similarly couched an Aprill847 editorial for the
Brooklyn Daily Eagle in the familiar logic of faculty psychology
that probably came to him via his own readings in phrenology.
He excoriated the "well-ordered governments" of Russia, Austria, and "the miserable German states" for excluding their
citizens from political processes and denying them free inquiry.
They fall into listless indifference, he asserted, while those
faculties related to self-government weaken through long neglect. According to Samuel Gridley Howe, the great educator,
crusader, and physician, the remedy seemed obvious. In A Discourse on the Social Relations of Man (1837) he wrote: "The
society which effects this [the full development of man's faculties] to the greatest possible number of its members, is in
accordance with the principles of phrenology, and is good." 19
The repression of any primary faculties violated as well other
rights that nature's government granted man, specifically life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In discussing this trinity
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ARTHUR WROBEL
the phrenologists had no difficulty reconciling the popular

meaning of these terms with their own idiosyncratic vocabulary
and precepts. Man's inalienable right to life was evident enough,
but a proper definition of the concept of liberty generated wide
interest in phrenological circles as it did energetic debate in the
whole nation from 1816 to shortly before the Civil War. By
settling on a definition such as the one George Lyon proposed in
his "Essay on the Phrenological Causes of the Different Degree
of Liberty Enjoyed by Different Nations" in the Eclinburgh Phrenological Journal, phrenology signaled its potential relevance to
a romantic liberalism that involved some of its followers in
several extravagant manifestations of mid-century individualism-from collectivist experiments to every shade and hue of
romantic reform. Lyon defines liberty as "the exercise at will of
the whole propensities, sentiments, and intellectual faculties,
in so far as this exercise is not prejudicial to, nor inconsistent
with, the legitimate exercise of all or any of these faculties in
others." Such a conceptualization applauded liberty; notably in
the sense guaranteed by the limits which the Bill of Rights set
on official power. It also resembled that of liberal Democrats.
Jefferson, for instance, used the term "liberty" to include the
conditions which make possible the emergence of a natural
aristocracy of virtue and talent by encouraging the development
of each man's intellectual and moral faculties. Sanguine prophets of America's millennia! future similarly attributed spiraling
progress to liberty; which permitted the full growth and development of man's faculties. The Democratic Review for July 1840
promises that the "exercise and discipline [of] these faculties"
results in "a perfect man. "20
The concept of happiness also implied more to this generation, as it did to the phrenologists, than it did to Locke. Garry
Wills shows in Inventing America that the most popular usage of
the term "happiness" derived from Jefferson's readings in the
political thought of the moral-sense philosophers, most notably
Hutcheson and, to a lesser degree, Hume and Ferguson. These
writers argued that happiness exists when man, responding to
the promptings of the moral sense, commits himself to promoting the well-being of his fellow citizens. 21 Judge Hurlbut's use of
131
the term similarly conveys a concern with moral and communal conduct: "Now the man of the highest mental endowment
and culture naturally perceives and adopts the mode of moral
and intellectual action which best subserves human happiness.
His conduct is approved by reason and natural morality." 22
Hurlbut also included a predictable aside to allay conservative
fears-that government must restrain those few who, formed
with a defective organization or training, are guided by low
instincts. In the main, however, he seems prepared to trust in
the inherent intelligence and morality of the majority of republicans.
Not so Combe. Less interested in specifically vindicating the
wisdom of the American founding fathers, Combe studied instead the theory and practical workings of American democracy.
He marshaled but a faint hurrah. While he and Spurzheim were
quick to deplore the uniformity of European populations constricted along artificial class lines, they also deplored the shrill
American pursuit of an imperfectly conceived idea of liberty: "If
ever knowledge of what is right, self-control to pursue it, and
high moral resolve to sacrifice every motive of self-interest and
individual ambition, to the dictates of benevolence and justice,
were needed in any people, they are wanted in the citizens of the
United States." 23 Combe felt American society too sanguine
about giving its citizens the free play of all their faculties and
sounded a stern admonitory note: optimism over America's
future was unwarranted, he cautioned, if its citizens continued
to mistake the pursuit of license for true happiness. 24 Spurzheim similarly warned millennially expectant Americans:
"Union and morality alone can save the future happiness of the
United States of America. Being divided or without morality,
they will have the fate of the ancient and modern nations of the
old world. Intellectual education alone cannot produce the desired effect."
Clearly, this represented a conservative view. The defeat of
Edward Everett for reelection by a majority of one vote for
governor of Massachusetts in 1839 appalled Combe. That a man
of such" great talents and accomplishments" should go down to
defeat at the hands of a populace guided by "their faults, foibles,
132
ARTHUR WROBEL
and imperfections," haunted him. 25 To avoid such debacles in

the future, Combe proposed a typically Whiggish solutionthat the enlightened classes raise "the mental condition of the
people ... which will enable them to understand the moral and
political principles on which the welfare of nations is founded."
Otherwise, Combe predicted an uncontrolled development of
the faculties of Acquisitiveness (greed), Self-Esteem (excessive
self-confidence), and Love of Approbation (vanity), which could
destroy the Union. 26 Citing the existence of lynch mobs, wild
money speculation, impulsive changes in laws and policy, and
an appalling self-complacency, he also recommended the
strengthening of those civil laws already in existence.27 As a
good over-all moral tonic for the masses, he even urged the
publication of a paper "composed partly on the principles of
Addison's Spectator-taking cognizance of manners and minor
morals, and partly on those of Chambers's Journal-combining
didactic instruction with a reasonable amount of entertaining
reading. " 28
Combe's moralistic and prescriptive tone when speaking
about American democracy is no different from that pervading
his most influential work, The Constitution of Man, which he
once described as "an attempt ... to arrive, by the aid of phrenology, at a demonstration of morality as a science." Under his
aegis phrenology came to resemble a secularized version of his
childhood Calvinism. Retaining a distrust of human nature and
a borderline deterministic view of man's innate faculties, he
shaped phrenology into a science of morality based on the moral
precepts said to be embedded in natural law. In translating the
doctrine of obedience to natural law into practical behavior,
Combe extolled virtues that were bound to cheer the heart of
any conservative; he upheld everything from temperance and
cleanliness to regular habits and family life. He anticipated the
day when the laboring classes would "recognize Phrenology"
and "devote themselves to improvement, with a zeal and earnestness that in a few generations will change the aspect of their
class." 29
Surely the conservative sponsors of Combe's American tour
must have been pleased with such sentiments. Combe publicly
133
praised his "philanthropic" sponsors for promoting a system of

instruction in superior citizenship. Clearly, the officers of the
many phrenological committees in each city where Combe
spoke belonged overwhelmingly to the educated classes. That
Combe mingled with and assiduously sounded the upper classes for their views is evident from the description of his datagathering methods: "I found no cause of enquiry so instructive
in the United States as conversations with persons of different
professions, such as proprietors of land, merchants, lawyers,
bankers, ministers of the Gospel, teachers, doctors in medicine,
as well as common working men," the latter group occupying a
symbolic position, one senses, in his catalogue. 30 In an anniversary address delivered before the Boston Phrenological Society,
Elisha Bartlett, M.D., probably represented the political persuasions of Combe's own audiences when he warned that mere
"education of the intellect" was "a broken reed" on which
popular government cannot rest for security, prosperity, and
social cohesion. Neither is security to be found, he asserted, "in
that other misnamed rock of safety,-the democracy of numbers,-the mere preponderance, ever changing, of numerical
strength." For him security rested rather in a combination of
revelation and phrenology, which teach men to subordinate
"the animal appetites and selfish desires to the moral and religious powers." 31
Others, however, felt differently. Recognizing phrenology's
epistemological malleability, Judge E.P. Hurlbut and O.S. Fowler
gave it a more liberal shape. Using the language and logic of
phrenology, they endorsed the kinds of extravagant claims and
visions that normally comprise heady Fourth of July orations. In
so doing they ignored history and denied human nature, celebrating instead the excellence of the American Constitution
and the professed transforming effect of free institutions on
individuals.
While Combe might have expected far-fetched political theories from a mountebank like Fowler, the so-called "practical"
phrenologist, he must have found Judge Hurlbut's views as
expressed in Essays on Human Rights and their Political Guaranties32 disconcerting. Strange to say, Combe once publicly ex-
134
ARTHUR WROBEL
pressed admiration for the judge; stranger yet, he also wrote

notes and commentary on this very volume. The former event
occurred on March 23, 1840, when Combe accepted a gift vase
presented to him by a committee comprised of officers of the
New York Phrenological Society. The chairman of that committee was Hurlbut. Named" the champion of truth" by Hurlbut in
his presentation speech, Combe responded in kind by declaring
his admiration of "the enlightened minds" of various Americans he had met during his stay in America; he named Horace
Mann ("a gifted individual") and Hurlbut (who "penetrated to
the core with his last and best of human sciences," phrenology).
He also recommended Hurlbut's recent volume Civil Office and
Political Ethics (1844) as "a valuable work," no doubt because its
ethical content was specifically aimed at raising the patriotism
and virtue of the American populace. 33 Essays on Human
Rights, however, he must have found considerably less salutary.
So radical are its views that even the American historian
Benjamin Fletcher Wright justly wonders "whether a more extremely individualistic interpretation of natural rights has ever
been written" than Hurlbut's Essays. In discoursing on the
origins of natural rights as conceptualized in the American
Constitution and the Bill of Rights, Hurlbut offers a theoretical
justification for "negative government" that would have satisfied even the most ardent Jacksonian. He begins by taking issue
with Blackstone's contention that a legislator's duty involves
ruling on issues to which no natural laws apply. Arguing instead
that natural laws exist for every issue, Hurlbut finds Blackstone's view pernicious because it invites tyranny, encouraging
governments to elevate impiously man-made laws above those
of nature. True justice and safety occur only when laws reflect
man's constitution and its adaptation to external nature such as
described by phrenology. Hurlbut next asserts the commonplace that man's fundamental right includes the gratification of
all of his faculties. But he soon slips into an uncommon view
when he maintains that governments are constituted exclusively to protect these rights, and he denies the right of government
to place any restraints on citizens which are incompatible with
their own moral natures and intellectual faculties. Further, he
135
insists, government is passive, existing only to obey voters'

directives. His proposals for witnessing a true democracy in
America, uncontaminated by borrowings from defective British
precedents, grow naturally out of the logic of his views on
natural rights. These include disallowing executive appointments, permitting the direct election of every office from president to constable, and removing property qualifications from
suffrage.
Combe's "Notes" to Essays on Human Rights were surprisingly restrained and even gracious, considering the extremity of
Hurlbut's theory of natural rights. He prudently ignored
Hurlbut's definition of happiness (the full exercise of all the
faculties), contextually using the term to imply obedience to
natural laws. To this end he proposed that government should
actively promote happiness through education and other measures necessary to raise the nation's moral level. Combe stood
firm in his conservatism and Hurlbut, from his published reply
to Combe in the appendix, stood firm in his radicalism.
Combe's other notes are rather perfunctory; in the main he
simply quotes from other political discourses in support of
Hurlbut's views. Perhaps Combe felt that the ideological gap
separating him from Hurlbut was too vast, making extensive
commentary pointless.34
Perhaps, too, Combe guessed that other Americans were
bound to take up Hurlbut's sentiments anyway. He guessed
right. The first two chapters of Hurlbut's book provide the theoretical groundwork, if not the direct source, for O.S. Fowler's
twelve-part series on "Republicanism the True Form of Government: Its Destined Influence, and Improvement" that appeared
in the American Phrenological Journal between September 1846
and August 1849. Here Fowler, like Hurlbut, signaled his sympathy with a program of total democratization that the Jeffersonians originally envisioned and the Jacksonians later attempted. This included the direct election of the president and
the federal judiciary, general white suffrage, the accountability
of all officials to the electorate, and the removal of residential
requirements for elective office. Simiarly, Fowler subscribed to
the view that men in masses are sound logicians, confidently
136
ARTHUR WROBEL
defining republicanism as "the rule of the majority in every

thing." 35 He urged eliminating all Federalist contaminations
from the Constitution-checks and balances, the electoral college, and executive privilege-and viewed elected officials as
passive agents of their constituents. Government was to be the
"union of the many for the good of all." 36
Both he and Hurlbut saved their bitterest denunciations for
those few who attempted to circumvent the operation of a true
democracy in petitioning legislatures for special privileges. Duties, monopolies, and charters, Fowler asserted, were residues of
kingcraft and threatened to corrupt a natural democracy.37 For
Hurlbut, "A just government will confer no special privileges;
its powers will be exerted only in the vindication and defence of
human rights. Privilege conferred upon one man implies a derogation from the rights of others." 38 In the logic of phrenology,
the unjust advantages special interests gained were felt to play
havoc with the faculty of Self-Esteem and to violate natural
equality as revealed in natural law. Hurlbut and Fowler would
have seen Jackson's attacks on the "hydra-headed monsters"the United States Bank and the American System, and his
handling of the Charles River Bridge case-as they were seen by
the Jacksonians, as measures necessary to ensure the operation
of natural law.
Predictably, their commitment to disestablishing special
privilege made Fowler and Hurlbut sympathetic to a laissezfaire concept of political economy popularized in America by
William Gouge, William Leggett, and Theodore Sedgwick as
well as by Frances Wayland and other academics. However impractical such a policy might appear to political theorists in our
own age of political and economic engineering, the phrenologists viewed laissez-faire as something akin to "an act of
moral communion." 39 To them, as to liberal democrats, it represented the extension of natural rights into economics. Hurlbut
sounds like O'Sullivan in urging government to permit business
and the interests of society to find their own balance. Clearly,
Fowler and Hurlbut advocated a form of negative or hidden
government that had its origins in eighteenth-century Enlightenment thought. In response to this romantic primitivism,
137
conservatives charged that laissez-faire encouraged an unchecked and unprincipled individualism. Phrenologists responded in tum, arguing that the very nature of democratic
society, by compelling its members to participate in human
affairs, checked extreme individualism. They were also prepared
to tune to their highest pitch the activity of sentiments such as
Justice, Benevolence, and Morality, and to shape individualism
to serve a higher law.
While Fowler approved of Jackson's campaign to remove as
much government as possible, he remained somewhat cautious.
He urged more education of the intellect and moral sentiments
during the period when established authority slowly relinquished its power. (He estimated the year 1900 for the unfolding of the Great Republic. 40 ) This stands in sharp contrast to
Combe, who recommended more government and more education aimed at instructing the populace in their proper duties as
citizens. Whereas Combe believed education could merely influence a person's faculties and sentiments regarding their proper use, Fowler optimistically asserted that education could
overhaul and restructure a person's mental constitution. With
many of his contemporaries, particularly champions of public
school education, he viewed education as a tool to shape malleable human nature into a work of virtue and intelligence. 41
Fowler's correctives had a special urgency about them. They
combined, as they did for many, with a faith in the law of
progress that would witness the unfolding of an enlightened
society of free men guided only by the checks of their own
natural morality. This was to be the secular millennium. Never
doubting the divine origin of democracy's mandate, Fowler was
as mystical as any passionate patriot. In such a society the
spontaneous impulses of enlightened men would be to do right,
the state existing only to provide a resplendent intellectual and
cultural atmosphere to aid in each man's apotheosis. Hurlbut
envisioned not merely the absence of government restraints or
the Lockean submission to rational laws, but the complete
supremacy of men's will over lower desires and propensities. 42
For O.S. Fowler the stimulation of the higher faculties by spiritual love was needed: "Then superadd that good, pure, moral,
138
ARTHUR WROBEL
normal action of all the Faculties imparted by 'love pure and

undefiled,' and we have a millennium, individual and universal."43 While the revivalists of the period anticipated the creation of a millennia! society founded on the fatherhood of God
and the brotherhood of man, the phrenologists promised the
unfolding of the Great Republic founded on the laws of human
and external nature and the brotherhood of man.
By his adherence to millennialistic thought, Fowler committed the science of phrenology to a complex of prewar liberal
humanitarian crusades, all of which were manifestations of the
larger pattern of American perfectionist aspirations. The condition of liberty constituted a necessary prerequisite for men to
learn to govern themselves and to establish a collective moral
order. Temperance, women's rights, public education, and penal
reform, in which the phrenologists took a decisive role, were its
first stirrings. They offered the empirical intelligence of their
science in mapping out this new and dazzling country hovering
just over the horizon.
For some, phrenology's authority helped quell the unquietness that Major Wilson asserts characterized the first half of the
nineteenth century. To radicals and conservatives alike, this
science promised an orderly movement from the present toward
a sublimely perfect future according to familiar beliefs about
America's national destiny that many came to regard as truths.
But in the wake of vast postwar social and economic changes,
men grew impatient with fine questions about liberty and equal
rights and natural laws. The scientific and philosophical paradigm of beliefs, values, and techniques of eighteenth-century
nature philosophy that the phrenologists used as a point of
departure for their own speculations had slipped into quaint
anachronism. Their conflation of political theory and natural
law was no less delusive.
Now men concerned themselves with the threat of infringements on personal liberty brought about by an increasingly
complex industrial society. More government was needed, not
less; simplicity and economy in government were not feasible
any more. The only agency of redress against the powerful and
wealthy was a strong federal government, one that would safe-
139
guard the very liberties Jefferson and Jackson insisted resided

naturally in the people. Laissez-faire abandoned the belief (in
Jackson's words) that a government should "shower its favors
alike on the high and low, the rich and the poor" in order to
ensure the greatest amount of liberty to all men. In too many
instances it became a rationale for ruthlessly defending monopolies and protective tariffs.
Phrenology's remarkable compatibility with the major currents of mid-nineteenth-century thought was not calculating. 44
Rather, it reminds us that scientific discovery, for all its much
vaunted objectivity, is seldom value-free or uncontaminated by
the prevailing political and social ideology of the age in which it
appears. The message of Darwin's Origin and particularly
Spencer's popularization, may be convincingly viewed as a corollary expression of the Victorian social structure no less than
Lysenko's genetic experiments were of Soviet social theory.
Similarly, John McLoughlin has taught us the impossibility of
properly understanding nineteenth-century pietism without
studying its secular expression in Jacksonian faiths. 45 Herein
lies phrenology's greatest value to the scholar. Because it addressed a wide range of issues and committed itself to many of
the premises regarding the nature of man and of human society
held during this period, phrenology's rise, flourishing, and
eventual decline describe in miniature the fate of so many
segments of nineteenth-century thought and idealisms.
NOTES--------------------------------------Epigraph: Johann G. Spurzheim, The Physiognomical System of Drs.
Gall and Spurzheim, 2nded. (London: Baldwin, CardockandJoy, 1815),
p. 345.
1. George Combe, Notes on the United States of North America
during a Phrenological Visit in 1838-9-40 (Philadelphia: Carey and
Hart, 1841) 2:321-54; John D. Davies, Phrenology: Fad and Science
(New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1955), p. 21.
2. Combe, Notes 2: 104.
3. Literary Reviews, Ladies' Companion 15 (May 1841): 48, cited
in Davies, Phrenology, p. 22n; Combe, Notes 1:361-62.
4. ucombe on Phrenology,[/ Philadelphia Journal of the Medical
11
11
140
ARTHUR WROBEL
and Physical Sciences 5 (1822): 398-424; "Phrenology Made Easy,"

Knickerbocker Magazine 2 (June 1838): 523-27; "Combe's Lectures on
Phrenology," Eclectic Tournai of Medicine 3(Nov. 1838): 32-34; [Park
Benjamin], "The Late Dr. Spurzheim," New England Magazine 4 (Jan.
1833): 40-47.
5. Gall's concept of the mind was not new; a faculty psychology
based on localized brain functions had been proposed as early as Galen
and as recently as Scottish common sense philosophy. But Gall stressed
the functional role of the mmd, and, more Importantly, removed the
study of the mind from the province of theology and metaphysics and
placed it among the biological and medical sciences. Gall's work also
challenged the two major epistemological philosophies: the rationalistic view of innate ideas as the sources of man's knowledge (Plato and
Descartes) and the sensationalistic (Locke, Condillac, and Hume).
Robert M. Young, Mind, Brain and Adaptation in the Nineteenth
Century (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970), p. 15.
6. Owsei Temkin, "Gall and the Phrenological Movement," Bulletin of the History of Medicine 21 (1947): 276-81, 307-12; Davies,
Phrenology, pp. 5-11; Anthony A. Walsh, "Phrenology and the Boston
Medical Community in the 1830s," Bulletin of the History of Medicine
50 (1976): 261-73.
7. Douglas Adair, " 'That Politics May be Reduced to a Science':
David Hume, James Madison, and the Tenth Federalist," Fame and the
Founding Fathers, ed. Trevor Colboum (New York: Norton, 1974), pp.
94-95; Bernard Crick, The American Science of Politics: Its Origins
and Conditions (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1959), pp. 4-6. The
study of political science at the unviersity was a poor affair. Included
under the rubric of moral philosophy in the curriculum, its texts never
influenced the development of an American science of politics. Francis
Wayland's The Elements of Moral Science (New York, 1835) and
William Whewell's Elements of Morality, Including Polity (London,
1845; New York, 1856) were suffused with homilies about the relation
of liberty to order and overlaid with didacticism. Crick, American
Politics, p. 12.
8. Quoted in Adair, "Politics Reduced," pp. 95, 94.
9. Arthur Wrobel, "Orthodoxy and Respectability in NineteenthCentury Phrenology," [ournal of Popular Culture 9 (summer 1975):
38-50.
10. Garry Wills, Inventing America: [efferson's Declaration of Independence (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1978) argues that the Scottish
philosophers influenced Jefferson's formulation of major ideas that he
141
wrote into the Declaration. See part 3. In minimizing the influence of

John Locke, Wills challenges Carl L. Becker's study The Declaration of
Independence: A Study in the History of Political Ideas (1922; rpt.
New York: Vintage-Knopf, 1942). Other valuable discussions of the
background of early American political thought include: Yehoshua
Arieli, Individualism and Nationalism in American Ideology (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1964); and Gordon S. Wood, The Creation
of the American Republic, 1776-1787 (Chapel Hill: Univ. of North
Carolina Press,l969), especially Part 1 and chapter 15.
11. John Adams, A Defence of the Constitution of Government of
the United States of America, in The Works of John Adams (Boston:
Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1851), 4: 292; idem, Four Letters,
ibid., 6: 483; Johann Gaspar Spurzheim, Education: Its Elementary
Principles Founded on the Nature of Man, 12th American ed. (New
York: Fowler & Wells, 1854), p. 271.
12. Temkin, "Gall," pp. 86-87,306-7, 302-3; [Orson Squire Fowler],
"Republicanism the True Form of Government: Its Destined Influence,
and Improvement," American Phrenological Journal 8 (Sept. 1846):
271. This last is the first in a series of twelve articles that extends over
three years. See also Combe, Notes 2:322-33.
13. [Elisha P. Hurlbut], "On Rights and Government," United States
Magazine and Democratic Review9 (Nov. 1841): 462. For a discussion
of Shaftsbury's presence in early American political thought, see Arieli,
Individualism and Nationalism, pp. 57-59.
14. Spurzheim, Education, p. 262; [Fowler], "Republicanism," 8
(Sept. 1846): 271-73; Combe, Notes 2:322-33.
15. [Fowler], "Republicanism," 8 (Nov. 1846): 339.
16. "The Course of Civilization," United States Magazine and
DemocraticReview6(Sept.1839): 213; [Hurlbut), "OnRights,"9(Nov.
1841): 464.
17. Combe, Notes 2:322.
18. Ibid., pp. 322-24.
19. Walt Whitman, "American Democracy," The Gathering of the
Forces, Cleveland Rogers and John Black, eds. (New York: Putnam,
1920), 1:4; Samuel Gridley Howe, A Discourse on the Social Relations
of Man (Boston: Marsh, Capen & Lyon, 1837), p. 7.
20. George Lyon, "Essay on the Phrenological Causes of the Different Degrees of Liberty Enjoyed by Different Nations," Edinburgh
Phrenological Journal2 (1824): 599-600; Don M. Wolfe, The Image of
Man in America, 2d ed. (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1950), p. 33;
"The Progress of Society," United States Magazine and Democrat1c
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ARTHUR WROBEL
Review 8 (July 1840): 68. For a background discussion about liberty; see
Major L. Wilson, Space, Time and Freedom: The Quest for Nationality
and the Irrepressible Conflict, 1815-1861 (Westport, Conn.: Green-
wood Press, 1974).
21. Wills, Inventing America, pp. 216-17, 149-54.
22. [Hurlbut], "On Rights," 9 (Dec. 1841): 570.
24. Ibid., p. 333.
25. Spurzheim, Education, p. 262; Combe, Notes 1:xi-x1i.
26. Combe, Notes 2: 109; George Combe, Lectures on Phrenology,
introduction and notes by Andrew Boardman (New York: Fowler &
Wells, 1839), pp. 360-61.
27. Combe, Notes 2:341-43.
28. Ibid., p. 273.
29. George Combe, The Constitution of Man Considered in Relation to External Objects, 9th American ed. (Boston: William D. Ticknor, 1839), p. 200; Roger Cooter, The Cultural Meaning of Popular
Science: Phrenology and the Organization of Consent in NineteenthCentury Britain (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1984), p. 121;
Combe, Constitution, p. 232. How Combe's rigid conservatism resembled a secular Calvinism constitutes but one motif in Roger
Cooter's rich and exciting study. Cooter's study challenges the conventional view that phrenology; through Combe, contributed toward shaping positivist social philosophy and an intellectual climate receptive to
socialist experiments and freethinking among English artisans. Phrenology did, and Cooter shows this, but not with Combe's blessings so
much as through the efforts of others who chose to interpret Combe's
doctrines according to their own ideological bent.
30. Combe, Notes 1:xii.
31. Elisha Bartlett, M.D., An Address Delivered at the Anniversary
Celebration of. .. the Organization of the Boston Phrenological Society,
January 1, 1838 (Boston: Marsh, Capen & Lyon, 1838), pp. 17, 21, 22.
32. E[lisha] P. Hurlbut, Essays on Human Rights and Their Political
Guaranties, with a preface and notes by George Combe (New York,
1845; Edinburgh: Maclachlan, Stewart, 1847). The first two chapters
appeared as the two-part series "On Rights and Government" in the
Democratic Review; as cited earlier. Hurlbut added another title to his
list much later in the century: A Secular View of Religion in the State,
and the Bible in the Public Schools (Albany; N.Y., 1870).
34. Benjamin Fletcher Wright, Jr., American Interpretations of Nat-
143
ural Law (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1931), p. 257; Hurlbut,

Essays, pp. 221-22.
35. See Arieli, Individualism, p. 166; Rush Welter, The Mind of
America (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1974), p. 173. See also
[Fowler], "Republicanism,"9 (July 1847): 206-10; 9 (Dec.1847): 370-73;
10 (Oct. 1848): 308.
36. [Fowler], "Republicanism," 11 (July 1849): 214.
37. Ibid., 9 (Dec. 1847): 371.
38. [Hurlbut], "On Rights," 9 (Dec. 1841): 576.
39. Arthur M. Schlesinger, The Age of Jackson (Boston: Little,
Brown, 1945), pp. 314-17; Harold Kaplan, Democratic Humanism and
American Literature (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1972), p. 5.
40. Carl Becker, "What Is Still Living in Jefferson's Philosophy?"
The National Temper, ed. Lawrence W. Levine and Robert Middlekauff
(New York: Harcourt Brace & World, 1968), p. 106; Schlesinger, Age of
Jackson, pp. 314-17; [Fowler], "Republicanism," 9 (Feb. 1847): 73.
41. [Fowler,]"Republicanism," 10 (Oct. 1848): 309-10.
42. [Hurlbut], "On Rights," 9 (Dec. 1841): 572-73.
43. H.R. Schetterly, "The Millennium," with notes by the editor
[O.S. Fowler], American Phrenological Journal 8 (July 1846): 199-210.
For other instances of Fowler's millennia! thought see: "Progression a
Law of Nature: Its Application to Human Improvement," American
Phrenological Journal, 7 (March 1844): 73-77; June 1845: 161-66;
O[rson] S[quire] Fowler and L[orenzo] N[iles] Fowler, Phrenology:
Proved, Illustrated and Applied (New York: Fowler & Wells, 1836), p.
425; O[rson] S[quire] Fowler, Creative and Sexual Science, or Manhood,
Womanhood and Their Mutual Inter-Relations (n.p., n.d.), p. 55.
44. John Higham, From Boundlessness to Consolidation: The
Transformation of American Culture, 1848-1860 repr. in Bobbs-Merrill
Reprint Series in American History (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1969),
pp. 15-21. See also Richard Hofstadter, The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It (New York: Knopf, 1973), pp. 162-82.
45. William G. McLoughlin, introduction to Charles Grandison Finney, Lectures on Revivals of Religion (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press
of Harvard Univ. Press, 1960).
HAROLD A S P I Z - - - - - - - - - - -
7. Sexuality and
the Pseudo-Sciences
In 1862 Eliza Farnham named the established "truths of the age

... in their chronological order" as "Reformed Medical Practice,
Phrenology; Magnetism, Woman's Rights, [and] Spiritualism." 1
To this list I would add the "truth" of evolutionary eugenics,
which, like all pseudo-sciences, formulated supposedly immutable "laws" of personal and racial improvement by combining
scientific fact, millennia! optimism, and a mechanistic approach to change. Formulas to perfect body and spirit through
sexual means co-existed with the other pseudo-sciences and
were a common denominator in many of them. Obsessed with
health and generally assuming that one's bodily condition reflected one's spiritual state, Victorian reformers often lamented
a perceived physical decline among their contemporaries when
compared to the supposedly superior condition of their ancestors; and they interpreted this falling off as a sign of moral
decay. To halt racial deterioration and to upgrade the population,
reformers and pseudo-scientists advocated the selection of the
best qualified parents who would breed according to prescribed
"laws."
Victorian America articulated its concerns in sexual prescriptions and proscriptions. In this context, eugenic pseudo-scientists and reformers generally represented a liberating force,
helping to demystify the sexual processes and enabling women
to demand at least minimal control of their own sexuality. They
Sexuality and the Pseudo-Sciences
145
fueled the pervasive faith in the improvability of the species and

of the individual. They defended and broadened the limits of
free speech and helped to bring about a respect for sexuality as a
fundamental element in the human character. Their equation of
success with being well begotten and well sexed contributed to
the myth of the strongly sexed personality, so prominent in
American culture from Whitman to Mailer, and beyond. Their
conviction that sexual intercourse had a sanctifying spiritual
element and that mutually orgasmic intercourse was productive of the most splendid offspring have etched themselves into
our folklore. Their insistence that sex must be studied as a
science has helped to spur the modem study of the subject.
The faith that the healthy body could be a moral force, an
agent of progress, was deeply rooted in nineteenth-century
thought. Catharine Beecher, the mother of physical education
in America, Horace Greeley, and Walt Whitman were among the
many sympathizers with the pseudo-sciences who considered
physical regeneration to be the indispensable first step toward
personal and national greatness. 2 Typically, Whitman decried
the "pale, dissipated, 'used up' "American young men and the
young women incapable of becoming the sort of healthy mothers that their grandmothers had been. Whitman's essay on moral and esthetic reforms, Democratic Vistas (1870), formulated a
sexual-eugenic program for an America whose youth lacked the
"magnetism of sex," were "puny, impudent, foppish, prematurely ripe, and characterized by an abnormal libidinousness" and a diminished "capacity for good motherhood." His
language is that of the eugenic pseudo-sciences: "magnetism"
alludes to the supposedly electrical basis of the sexual functions; premature ripeness to the inadequate development of the
sexual powers, said to result in "green" children; "abnormal
libidinousness" to the corruption of the body's capacity toreproduce. Whitman's suggested remedy-planting "crops of fine
youths" who would, in tum, become America's best breedersis based on the eugenic premise that the physiological upgrading of the American citizenry must precede, and form the basis
of, political and moral advancement. He was convinced that
America's "great common stock" (i.e., a birthstock of vigorous
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HAROLD ASPIZ
young native-born Americans emerging from among the common people) could produce "copious supplies" of "healthy,
acute, handsome individualities, modernized and fully adapted
to our soil, our days, city and country."3
Like many of the pseudo-scientists, Whitman believed in
what has been called the "procreative dream" of nineteenthcentury eugenic reformers-" a renewed and more desperate
attempt to control and shape procreative powers as if the American body politic were really a body"-to "have Anglo-Saxon
parents reproduce on stock-breeding principles" in order to
preserve "the blood of strong races in our veins" and reestablish
a sound national health. 4 Among Whitman's contemporaries
the famed anti-masturbation campaigner John Todd warned in
1867 that only sweeping physiological reforms could "prevent
the rapid extinction of the American people." America's most
prominent gynecologists, Drs. J. Marion Sims and Augustus
Kinsley Gardner, maintained that by instituting physiological
reforms and managing the reproductive process America could
produce superior offspring: "There has never been a people with
larger opportunities for building up a fine national physique,
than we Americans enjoy," Gardner said. On the other hand, by
neglecting the "laws" of scientific breeding and "the rules of
health [America] may rapidly degenerate, or even disappear, as
the poor Indians are doing." Conservative eugenic reformers
like Gardner viewed the control of the parenting process as a
means to alter the race without changing the social system; but
many radical reformers saw sexual reform as the key to all social
improvement. 5
An important eugenic passage in Whitman's Democratic Vistas asserts that America's future greatness depends on scientific
breeding. Whitman proposes that parents capable of transmitting the best hereditary traits should create a "clear-blooded"
progeny of nordic Americans. Brashly identifying himself as an
"ethnologist, " 6 he proposes a "new ethnology" grounded on the
recognizable principles of sexual reformism:
Parentage must consider itself in advance. (Will the time hasten when
fatherhood and motherhood shall become a science-and the noblest
147
science?) To our model, a clear-blooded, strong-fibred physique is indispensable, the questions of food, drink, exercise, assimilation, digestion,
can never be intermitted. Out of these we descry a well-begotten selfhood-its youth, fresh, ardent, emotional, aspiring, full of adventure; at
maturity; brave, perceptive, ... and a general presence that holds its own
in the company of the highest. (For it is native personality; and that
alone, that endows a man to stand before presidents and generals, or in
any distinguish'd collection, with aplomb--and not culture, or any
knowledge or intellect whatever.)7
Whitman's goal of scientific begetting-a process which would
endow children with desirable native qualities and thus inaugurate a new American race-was shared by two generations of
eugenic pseudo-scientists.
Reformers tried to synthesize the antithetical Victorian attitudes toward sexuality: that sex was an animalistic attribute
which must be curbed and that sex was a sacred gift designed to
produce superb children. With few exceptions, their sexual theories were tinged with an advocacy of sexual continence or
abstinence (although these terms were given a broad latitude of
interpretation), as if to say that orgasmic intercourse was sanctified only when it was intended to produce children. At its
extreme, the attitude that sex was inherently vile was represented by Thomas Lake Harris, a spiritualist whose program of
sexless monogamy was designed to thwart sexual desire altogether ("Monogamists who enter into union with me rise, by
changes of life, into a desire for the death of natural sexuality")
and by the followers of George Rapp, the mystic communitarian, who advocated total celibacy as a means to restore
God's kingdom on earth: "Since man's fall, the sexual organs
have become bestial and separated, contrary to God's design ... all intercourse of the sexes, both in and out of marriage
[is] pollution [an act of unredeemed man]. After his fall Adam no
longer begat a son in the image of God but in his own sexual
likeness. All men and women born since Adam are his sinful
posterity, all have the bestial sexual organs, and all, because they
represent only a half, and that the fallen half, of the original
Adam, are living symbols of the disharmony brought into the
world by Adam's sin." After the cessation of all sexual inter-
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HAROLD ASPIZ
course, the truly celibate would be reborn as saints. s (In this

light, we may appreciate the profound eugenic meaning of Whitman's Democratic Vistas and of the new Adam in his poems,
whose being reconciles the natural and divine halves of the
original Adam into one noble creature, the very ideal of American sexual reformers.)
One of the many reformers who tried to accommodate the
revulsion against sexuality to the ubiquitous evidence that Victorians had strong sexual drives was A. J. Ingersoll, who operated
a marriage and sex "cure" in Corning, New York. Ingersoll, a
conservative mind curist, made two assumptions: first, that the
repression of women's naturally powerful sexual drives leads to
a broad range of "female" diseases, malfunctions, and hysteria;
second, that these problems can be remedied by a faith in Jesus
Christ and by women's cheerful submission to the rule of their
husbands in all matters. Such compliance, he said, would cure
menstrual ailments, which, in turn, are manifestations of the
wife's resistance to her husband's marital prerogatives. A nation
of submissive Christian women would find, in Ingersoll's
phrase, that they had been "born again sexually," that their
husbands had become loving and devoted but at the same time
less insistent on frequent sexual intercourse, and (in a notion
that runs through most of these eugenic formulations) that their
sexual relations had become much more pleasurable. Ingersoll
intended his restrictive system to bring about higher levels of
chastity and morality and, at the same time, to produce better
children. Children born as a consequence of the infrequent and
reverential, but decidedly ardent, matings of enlightened parents were sure to be superior beings. 9
The pseudo-scientific formulas for attaining an improved
progeny which were published between 1830 and 1900 generally
involved several tenets. Most important of these was an obligation to analyze the traits inherited from one's parents and those
inherited by one's prospective spouse. Because ancestral
strengths and infirmities were thought to be transmitted to
one's offspring, the coupling of persons with similar natural
flaws would result in inferior children. These formulas generally forbade "premature marriages, especially of delicate fe-
149
males, and persons strongly disposed to hereditary disease";

"marriage between partners too nearly allied in blood, particularly when either of them is descended from an unhealthy
race"; and "great disproportion in age between parents." Prospective bridegrooms were told to find mates endowed with the
"vital" temperament-robust, strongly sexed, well-muscled,
large-breasted, wide-hipped, large in the pelvis, fair complexioned (as best suited to childbearing), and to avoid corseted,
wasp-waisted women. At the beginning of our century, Bernarr
Macfadden, the impresario of the physical culture industry,
could still counsel men to "Marry a Woman, not a Corseted
Sexless Nonentity," and warn them that if they married a wife
who lacked a vigorous sex drive their marriages were sure to fail.
Macfadden also instructed men that they must be powerfully
sexed if they would succeed as husbands, businessmen, or artists: "The sexual power of a man indicates with marvelous
accuracy his general physical and mental condition." These
formulas also specified a long abstinence from sexual indulgence when children were not desired; a period of preparation
and self-enlightenment preceding the decisive coitus which
created the child; sexual consummation only when both of the
partners are ready, with particular emphasis on the woman's
passionate readiness for sexual congress; heroically vigorous
copulations to engender the child; prolonged abstinence from
sexual indulgence following impregnation; and the proper nurture both in the womb and during the child's formative years.
The formulas were based on the premise that a child's character
and constitution are determined by "the state of the parents at
the time of conception" and by "the state of health and conduct
of the mother during pregnancy. " 10
Among the most prolific American preceptors of eugenic
sexual reform during the four decades commencing in the 1830s
were the Fowler brothers, phrenologists, whose periodical
pieces, pamphlets, and books collectively totaled thousands of
pages and possibly reached millions of readers. Like most eugenic reformers, their work was repetitious, humorless, dogmatic, and constantly changing to meet the encroachment of
new scientific knowledge. Lorenzo Niles Fowler's little volume
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HAROLD ASPIZ
The Principles of Phrenology and Physiology, Applied to Man's

Moral Nature, appropriating the phrenological ideas of Johann
Gaspar Spurzheim and George Combe, told readers how to
evaluate each of the forty or so of their phrenological organs (or
"faculties") located in the brain in order to determine the sort of
children they would, or could, bring into the world. Lorenzo
Fowler saw phrenology as a handmaiden of conventional monogamy. Thus he described a phrenological organ of Philoprogenitiveness, governing the conduct of tender parenthood;
an organ of Union for Life; an organ of Inhabitiveness, governing
both patriotism and loyalty within the marriage relationship;
and an organ of Amativeness, governing the sex drive, whose
powerful development in both parents he deemed essential for
the soundest mating. He voiced what was to become an operative principle among eugenic reformers: that sexual intercourse transmits the parents' weakest traits with the same
precision as it does their best traits; therefore they must
strengthen their good qualities and temper their weaker ones if
they wish to improve the "product" of their lovemaking, paying
careful attention to their physical and mental states at the time
of the fateful insemination.l 1
Lorenzo Fowler's best-seller Marriage: Its History and Ceremonies expressed another eugenic principle: desired natal traits
are transmitted to the unborn child during intercourse by
means of a sort of science of the mind which raises the will
power of the parents to a veritable biological force. "As is the
mental condition of the parents, particularly the mother, before
the birth of the child-so is the state of the mind after birth; and
this principle also extends to an influence on bodily conditions." He also endorsed the venerable notion that an individual's body affords accurate data (derived from the reading of the
physiognomic features or the phrenological "head bumps,"
say)-clues that may be used to diagnose the prospective parents
and improve the results of their matings. Quite typically; he
insisted that his method of analyzing the physiques and pseudoscientific indicators, then modifying the physical and mental
states in order to bring about the production of better children,
was in keeping with God's plan and nature's laws. 12
151
But it was Orson Squire Fowler, America's premier phrenological ideologue, who developed the most elaborate formulations of phrenology, sex, marriage, and nurture. His manual on
heredity and sex, Love and Parentage, a self-styled "missionary
volume from God," prescribed the means for realizing "the
boundless capabilities and perfections of our God-like nature"
and eliminating "the scape-goats of humanity which infest our
earth," thus repairing the damage done by Adam's fall. Bringing
about the Christian millennium by the scientific management
of the birth processes was a tenet of the eugenic pseudo-sciences. The premise of Fowler's book was that each aspect of
human existence is governed by combinations of the forty or
more phrenological faculties, all of which can be modified during one's lifetime and even in the midst of sexual intercourse,
when they are "temporarily excited"; that all human traits are
sexually transmissible; and that copulation is an instrumentality of human control and betterment. Even the most transitory condition-the result of an inflammation or of an exhilarated
mood-is passed on in the "sub-magnetic fluid," which seems
to be produced by the twin magnetic poles (located in the brain
and in the chest of each parent). Sexual intercourse, thus defined, is a "reciprocity" of life-giving and life-supporting magnetism, or electricity; in which each phrenological faculty emits
an electrical charge corresponding precisely to its condition and
strength. These electrical emanations are blended in the brain
of the child, thus patterning the child's personality. When the
parents' traits are complementary or dissimilar, they become
"balanced" in the character of the child; when the parents' traits
are similar, they become intensified in the child. 13
The electrical nature of the sex act was imaginatively described by the Fowler and Wells staffer Daniel Harrison Jacques,
a specialist in the pseudo-science of the temperaments. Jacques
identified electricity as a "subtile fluid" which "seems to form
the connecting link between the soul and the body; and to be the
instrument by means of which the former builds, rebuilds, or
shapes the latter. It is generally supposed to be electric or magnetic in nature. The ancient Magians called it living fire." Although this magnetic essence is a distillation of our basic
152
HAROLD ASPIZ
selfhood, he claimed, we can purposefully modify it by training

our faculties. As each faculty is exercised, it stimulates a corresponding element of the brain's magnetic current. And, expressing a concept that became an article of faith among eugenic
pseudo-scientists and reformers, Jacques argued that the magnetic fluid when not expended during sexual activity but
chastely conserved and stored up within the body, "rebuilds,"
strengthens, and beautifies the individual. Variations of this
electromagnetic theory of sexual intercourse were widespread
in the literature of sexual reform, even among such "scientific"
expositors as Dr. Edward Bliss Foote. 14
Desirable hereditary traits can be bestowed and superior offspring created, the thrice-married Orson Fowler urged, only by
married lovers engaged in a "spiritual banquet of love." Like
many eugenic reformers, he enunciated a "law" of heroic copulation, reasoning "that the product of any given function is more
or less perfect in proportion to the perfection of the function
itself" and that "the health or disease, vigor or feebleness, &c., of
offspring" varies with "the energy or tameness of that function
which gives them being and capability." (Were he less circumspect, Fowler would certainly have added the widely credited
belief-as expressed in an 1839 marriage manual-that "an
immediate [orgasmic] response of the female at the moment of
emission" is "indispensable to accomplish a healthy impregnation.") As though describing a manufacturing process, Fowler
argued that the "quantity" and intensity of sexual intercourse
are critical: "Other things being equal, the more powerful this
function and intense its action at the time it stamps the impress
of life and character on its products, the more highly endowed
such products. Hence, at those occasions every means consistent with its healthy action should be employed to augment its
intensity. Indeed, those who incur the liability of becoming
parents EXCEPT when this function is wrought up to its highest
pitch of intensity, are BAD CITIZENS, and deserve the curse of
their posterity." (Small wonder that Victorians were familiar
with so many substances and concoctions intended to arouse
tumescence and female passion.) 15
Responsible parents, Fowler said, should bottle up their sex-
153
ual passions prior to marriage and, to a large extent, during

marriage in order to release them, as planned, in a volcanic babybegetting session. Love "heightens the ardor of the parental
embrace, and thereby improves the offspring" by creating "a
spiritual communion promotive of parental pleasure, and so
indispensable to the mental endowment of offspring." Healthy
parents produce prime children; enfeebled parents "violate the
laws of matrimony" and produce weaklings. Regulated copulation enjoyed when woman's sexual passion has crested in an
irrepressible urge to become pregnant and when the actions of
both parents are controlled by the noblest aspirations for the
child-to-be can assure optimum results. To accommodate the
Victorian cliche that women were less "passional" and that they
take much longer to reach their sexual peak, reformers assumed
that the flaring up of woman's dormant sexual desire signaled
her readiness for impregnation. Hence she should never be
compelled to have intercourse. Narrow-minded as was this male
version of female self-determination, Fowler had asserted a principle of nineteenth and twentieth-century feminism: the right
of women to control their sexuality and, in a measure, their own
bodies. 16
Henry C. Wright, who touted his "Law of Reproduction" as
the means to expel disease, regenerate human nature, and reform society, affirmed that "higher types of Humanity" cannot
be produced "till the passional intercourse is brought into subjection to marriage-love." "The perpetuation and perfection of
the race are the two great objects of sexual intercourse," declared Wright, a well-known reformer, abolitionist, lecturer on
marriage, and sex "clinician." "Progress, not pleasure, is our
aim," he declared. "The purest enjoyment is indeed designed to
be experienced in intercourse when prompted solely by love and
a desire for offspring. But unless such pleasure is mutual, the
offspring of such a union must be imperfect and distorted in its
constitutional tendencies." In the intervals between the sessions of lovemaking, the unexpended "sexual element" becomes a reservoir of "magnetic power" between the sexes.
Attempting to reconcile reformist eugenics and conventional
religion, Wright explained that the magnetism of sex is fully
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HAROLD ASPIZ
awakened only during "passional intercourse" in an ecstatic

union of two souls-" the hour of highest spiritual communion,
when heart and soul are merged in the consciousness of but one
existence, one life, one eternity." Like other reformers, he cautioned against the wasting of the vital element (semen) in the
marriage bed when children were not desired. He, too, insisted
that the wife must not be compelled to sexual intercourse "till
she demands it, and is ready cheerfully to receive, nourish, and
develop ... a living, healthy, perfect child." He expressed an idea
that became an article of faith among feminist reformers, that
woman is a "maternal" creature rather than a "sexual" one;
hence a good husband must accord his wife complete authority
in sexual matters: "It is woman's right, not her privilege, to
control the surrender of her person ... of all woman's rights, this
is the most sacred and inalienable. " 1 7
Orson Fowler's Hereditary Descent makes clear why the upgrading of future generations depends on skillful copulation.
Put simply, a child's traits of body and mind are not acquired but
inborn. "The physical and mental capacities of mankind are
INNATE, not created by education-have a CONSTITUTIONAL
character inherited from parents, instead of being a blank on
which education and circumstances write ALL they contain."
All is transmissible; "all is hereditary." But even those with
defective organisms should strive to improve themselves to
their biological limits-even if the improvement is only temporary-in order to transmit the best traits to their offspring.
According to this vulgar biological determinism, good qualities
in a child come from good qualities in the parents. "Our primary
mental powers must be CREATED before education can have any
data on which to operate. Education can only DEVELOP AND
DIRECT what is hom in and with us." By way of illustration (and
a point not lost on Walt Whitman, who owned a copy of this
book), Fowler insisted that "Poetry is INHERITED, not educational," that the "poetic TEMPERAMENT .. .is transmitted," particularly from the right sort of mother. "What son of genius was
ever hom of dolts?" he scoffed. "And when, in fact, the proper
attention is paid to HEREDITARY influences," and people learn
"to regulate their matrimonial choice as to produce offspring
155
endowed with WHATEVER qualities may be desired," a new and

unblemished race will people the earth "and earth become a
perfect paradise." 18
Because the quality of a child was deemed to be regulated by
the condition of its parents, the production of genius could be
treated as a technology. The process involved the timing of the
fateful copulation at that moment when the man and the woman, having hoarded their sexual reserves, were most intensely
"passional/' the fixation of the parents' minds on the material
and spiritual attributes with which their offspring was to be
endowed, the electrical transfer of their cherished desires
through their will power and the sexual-magnetic fluid, and the
obedience to countless "laws." Dante, Petrarch, Goldsmith,
Coleridge, and Schiller were all descendants of mature, spiritually minded parents, explained an obscure author, whereas
Cesare Borgia and Boccaccio were bastards, children of lust, so
that the one grew up to be a dissolute tyrant, the other a dissolute author. Orson Fowler cited other illustrative case histories: a girl who conceived out of wedlock while in a drunken
stupor gave birth to an idiot, a judge who was mirthful during
his lovemaking fathered a jolly child, and a whaleman who had
been gored amidships begot a child with a weak groin. 19
John Cowan's "Law of Genius," intended to upgrade the "mediocre" quality of mankind, enunciates this principle: "That in
its plastic state, during ante-natal life, like clay in the hands of
the potter, it [the child] can be molded into absolutely any form
of body and soul its parents may knowingly desire." "The reformation of the world can never be accomplished," Cowan
claimed, "the millennium of purity, chastity, and intense happiness can never reach this earth, except through cheerful obedience to pre-natal laws." According to Cowan's phrenologically tinged The Science of a New Life, the first step toward
a perfect marriage ("The Law of Choice") requires couples to
marry when they attain physiological ripeness, when their
"life-power" matures-the man at thirty years of age, sober,
moral, and masculine; the woman "at twenty-four, perfectly
developed, ripe and lovable," and well sexed. A spouse should
not be chosen because of affection or romance but because an
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HAROLD ASPIZ
analysis of the temperaments and phrenological faculties reveals a well-matched pairing of parental traits. When traits are
too much alike, they generate insufficient magnetic attraction
and inhibit the production of children.2o
The core of Cowan's program was his "law of continence,"
which, with certain variations, was echoed by many reformers:
"The noble army of the continent of mankind" is made up of
those who don't drink, smoke, wear corsets, dress ostentatiously, overeat, or live sedentary lives. They practice "voluntary and entire abstinence except when used for procreation,"
and they do not misuse the marriage bed for the "perverted
amativeness" of physical pleasure or sexual relief. Since Amativeness, the phrenological organ of the sex drive, is located at
the rear of the lower skull along with other animal faculties, it
may become an organ of animal lust. But coitus that occurs
when Amativeness has been subordinated to Spirituality, the
organ of reverence located at the top of the head, permits the
highest sexual-magnetic impulses to be telegraphed from the
brain of the parents to the brain of their child. The "law of
continence" mandates one heroic procreative session every two
years during a sunny August or September morn, so that the
child may be born in springtime. Following a four-week period
in which the prospective parents, in a spiritual mood, have been
focusing their will powers on those qualities with which they
want to endow their child, their copulation generates an electrical transference of these very qualities to the child. The act of
mating should occur in a pleasant room between 11 a.m. and
noon, when the sun, the electrical heart of the universe, is at its
zenith, reinforcing the parents' electricity, the interchange of
which is the essence of begetting and conceiving. (Parents
should copulate "in active exercise when the sun is up in the
heaven, so as to furnish electrical states of body," affirmed a
distinguished physician.) Prior to this "interview" the couple
have been sleeping apart in separate bedrooms in order to store
up the mysterious sexual-magnetic fluid; and following the
conception the continent couple resume sleeping apart during
pregnancy, "natural childbirth," lactation, and until the much
awaited August morn two years later when they are again ready
to begin the mating cycle. 21
157
Even those reformers who challenged institutionalized marriage affirmed most of the eugenic principles heretofore discussed, including the need for sexual continence and chastity in
relation to creating children. John Humphrey Noyes composed
a scandalous and widely read tract, "Male Continence/' which
outlined his celebrated formula to allow a broad latitude of
pleasurable sexual experiences, including the female orgasm,
while at the same time retaining the precious semen for the
sacred purpose of propagation. His scheme of "Bible communism" was essentially a perfectionist eugenic science. His
method of coitus reservatus (penetration without male orgasm),
permitting" scientific procreation" in which men saved up their
sexual powers for the union that would engender the superior
child-a child sanctioned by the community's eugenic planners-was said to conform to the principles of physiology and to
the divine law, and to elevate and ennoble society. Noyes's most
distinctive contribution to sexual reform, however, may have
been his teaching that pleasurable and varied sexual intercourse
helps to develop social skills, morality, and humane sentiment,
even while the precious semen is being hoarded until such time
as the community may sanction the impregnation of a selected
woman by a selected man. To offset criticism that intercourse
intended for mere pleasure was controlled by the baser instincts?2 Noyes revised phrenological dogma, contending that
"strictly speaking, the [phrenological] organs of propagation are
physiologically distinct from the [phrenological] organs of union
in both sexes"; the "propagative" organs may be animalistic,
but what he calls the "amative" organs are distinctly spiritual.
Noyes, too, defined intercourse as "a medium of magnetic and
spiritual interchange, an exercise in social magnetism," a "vital
element" in the well-being of men and women. While raising
recreational sex to one of the social graces, Noyes insisted on
the strictest control of the birth process by enforcing the same
sort of "laws" advocated by Fowler and Cowan. Only the fittest
parents would be chosen by the community to propagate and
only when they were deemed ready to do so. In the performance
of this sacred and civic duty the male would finally expend the
semen that he had so carefully hoarded. 23
Sexual"laws" were also espoused by advocates of "free love."
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HAROLD ASPIZ
Although he denounced traditional monogamy and believed

that men and women are promiscuous by nature, Ezra Heywood
insisted that love is itself sacred. An anarchist, civil libertarian,
and feminist, he defended "sexual thought and experiment,"
maintaining that the divine mission of liberated lovers is to be
"students in the laboratories of their own bodies." Invoking the
pseudo-scientific notions of electrical biology and Francis
Liebig's equation of bodily heat and the life force, he defended
sexual intercourse for its own sake: "Health, Temperance, SelfControl, and native grace are developed by intimate exchange of
Heat and Magnetism, while both sexes are thereby fitted for
Parentage." The stronger and more practiced the sexual art,
Heywood insisted, the better one is qualified for successful
parenthood. Heywood rejected abstinence, abortion, and contraception as harmful and unnatural; to avoid unwanted impregnation, he prescribed coitus reservatus and the rhythm
method. Like Noyes, Heywood distinguished between sociable
intercourse and the act of begetting children. And like all eugenic reformers, he insisted that the engendering of children
was a momentous act that must be performed subject to immutable "laws." Heywood's feisty little book of sexual criticism,
Cupid's Yokes, became the special target of Anthony Comstock
and his retinue of smut hunters, I suspect, because Heywood
was perceived by them as the subverter of two sacrosanct Victorian institutions: monogamous marriage and the spending of
semen solely for begetting. 24
The feminization of sexual reform built upon the same eugenic "laws." Alice Stockham, a Chicago-based physician, drew
from Noyes's pamphlet (without crediting him) to propose her
own combination of continence and sexual enjoyment, which
she called Karezza. LikeN ayes and like several of her contemporary women and men sexual reformers, she advocated a sexual
embrace not climaxed by orgasm but controlled by the concentrated will power of both lovers. She, too, insisted on the spirituality of the sex act whether it was intended for propagation or
for loving togetherness. But she made a breakthrough toward
twentieth-century mysticism by asserting that sexual intercourse can culminate in an exalted mental state. She envisioned
159
a sexual embrace which would reconcile sex and spirit, traditional Christianity and an orgiastic Bacchic transcendence,
physical and spiritual ecstasy. The prolonged but restrained
physical pleasure of Karezza could become an epiphany: "In the
course of an hour the physical tension subsides, the spiritual
exaltation increases, and not uncommonly visions of a transcendent life are seen and consciousness of new powers experienced." These are magic moments of "spiritual truth," when
the soul rules the body and the harmony of the universe vibrates
through men and women to be expressed in their reproductive
powers.
Karezza could also become the vehicle of spiritual growth:
In the physical union of male and female there may be a soul communion giving not only supreme happiness, but in turn conducing to soul
growth and development. There may, also, be a purpose and power in
this communion, when rightly understood, not less significant than
the begetting of children. Creative energy in man is manifold in its
manifestations, and can be trained into channels of usefulness. Consciously it may be utilized in every activity, devising, inventing, constructing. It may be directed to building bodily tissue and permeating
every cell with health and vigor. Sex in nature is universal, progressing
from lower to higher manifestations of life.2s
But these ideas did not lessen Stockham's regard for the careful
production of children or for the holy function of maternity.

Like Margaret Fuller, Eliza Farnham, and a host of male and
female reformers, she defined motherhood as "a divinely appointed mission," in conformity "with nature's plan, a law of
spirit," obedience to which will "lessen or entirely overcome
the usual sufferings of pregnancy and parturition." 2 6
Dr. Stockham had touched upon two themes whose importance seemed to increase in the course of the century: that the
procreative substance retained in the body can strengthen and
inspire the psyche, and that sexuality is the basis of artistic
creativity. Earlier reformers had often quoted the precept that
"totus homo semen est," that semen was man's microcosm, the
vehicle of his immortality. The conservative sexual reformer
Eliza Duffey had named semen as "an important constituent of
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HAROLD ASPIZ
manhood ... the very essence of life. It is necessary for the proper
development of a man, that this should be secreted, and then
reabsorbed into his system, adding vigor and tone to his whole
being." Dr. Gardner defined sperm as "the purest extract of the
blood," which, when not spent in begetting, could be reabsorbed
to "nourish" the male system with" an entirely new energy and
a virility which contributes to the prolongation of life." 27 In this
context, one is perhaps prepared for Dr. Stockham's declaration
that semen, "when retained in the system may be coined into
new thoughts, perhaps new inventions, grand conceptions of
the true, the beautiful, the usefuli or into fresh emotions of joy
and impulses of kindness and blessing all around." Retained
semen, which facilitates "procreation on the mental and spiritual planes, instead of the physical," is as much "a part of the
generative function as is the begetting of offspring." This "virile
principle" can add to "man's magnetic, mental, and spiritual
form," and it can bring "signs of this creative power ... throbbing
and pulsating through every fibre"-a power that can be devoted
to "the world's interests and development." 28
Here, somewhat refined, was Orson Fowler's notion that
potent sexuality so "sexes" creative persons that their "ideas
and feelings ... impregnate the mentality" of others and that all
great artists are well-sexed, "while the ideas of the poorly sexed
are tame, insipid, emasculated, and utterly fail to awaken enthusiasm."29 Here, too, we may recognize Whitman's self-advertisements as a spermatic "brawny embracer" whose sexual
superfluity qualified him to become America's greatest poet and
who illustrated, in a number of his poems, the way that the
Whitman persona's sexual arousal (with and without climax)
coincided and merged with his magic moments of sexual-creative exaltation. (As a Whitmanite, Dr. Stockham should have
understood the poet's intent.) Here, also, lay the point of Herman Melville's humorous contrast between the "spermatic"
Lord Byron, who was both horny and artistically creative, and
the woebegone Bartleby; a character devoid of any trace of the
virile principle. Melville symbolically equated stored-up sperm
and worldly success inMoby-Dick, when he described the whaling ship Bachelor, its hold brimming with accumulated sperm
161
oil, cheerily returning to its home port after a profitable whalehunting expedition. And as late as 1922 these tenacious ideas
stirred the imagination of Ezra Pound, who shouldered a heavy
burden of pseudo-scientific baggage, identifying the semen with
brain fluid, making "a certain connection between complete
and profound copulation and cerebral development" i finding a
close relation in the spiritual and phallic religionsi defining
semen as a creative reservoir, the conservation of which enables
one to "super-think" i locating the center of creativity in the
male sexual elementi and reviving the pseudo-scientific dogma
that to control the semen is somehow to control personal and
racial destiny. 30
As documented in the exemplary studies of Hal D. Sears and
Taylor Stoehr, the movement for social reform in the nineteenth
century was large, fluid, even amorphous. Sexual reform was
often linked to social, spiritualist, and scientific causes in
schemes to ameliorate the lot of mankind and, most particularly, of womankind. Given the Victorian constraints on free
speech, and specifically the prosecutions and persecutions that
Anthony Comstock and his minions directed toward the dissemination of information relating to sexual practice and birth
control, most reformers necessarily developed a kind of obscure
and reticent language. Surely much of the century's advocacy of
chastity and continence amounted to a tacit call for efficacious
birth control rather than a moral appeal for fundamental abstinence from sexual intercourse. Particularly, there seems to have
been an obscuring of the idea of continence and that of coitus
reservatus in the formulations of Noyes, Robert Dale Owen, the
Dianists, and many other reformers. Nor should one overlook
the fact that the eugenic reformers, whose programs ranged
from the conservative to the anarchistic, represented a wide
range of ideologies and were themselves a most varied group.
And despite what may now be perceived as some rather strange
views on their part, many of them were ardent defenders of free
thought and heroes and heroines in the causes which they
espoused.
In the century and a half since pseudo-scientific eugenics
first became a part of American thought, we have become much
162
HAROLD ASPIZ
more sophisticated concerning the physiology and psychology

of sex. Yet much remains mysterious. To speak charitably, the
Fowlers, Cowan, Stockham, and dozens of others were notaltogether unworthy predecessors of Havelock Ellis, Alfred
Kinsey, and Shere Hite. However flawed, their works are indispensable to those who seek to understand the sexual attitudes of
the last century and to explore the roots of our present-day
interpretations of sexuality.
Notes--------------------------------------------1. Mrs. Eliza W Farnham, "A Lecture on the Philosophy of Spiritual
Growth," pamphlet (San Francisco: Valentin & Co., 1862), p. 62.
2. Catharine E. Beecher, Physiology and Calisthenics for Schools
and Families (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1856); Horace Greeley;
Hints towards Reforms (New York: Fowler & Wells, 1853). See also T.W
Higginson, Out-Door Papers (Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1863). Dozens
of authors reached similar conclusions.
3. Walt Whitman, "What Are We Coming To?" Brooklyn Daily
Times, Aug. 5, 1857; idem Democratic Vistas, in Prose Works 1892, ed.
Floyd Stovall (New York: New York Umv. Press, 1964), pp. 369-72,
377-79; The Correspondence of Walt Whitman, ed. Edwin H. Miller
(New York: New York Univ. Press, 1961): 2:18-19.
4. Ben (sic] Barker-Benfield, "The Spermatic Economy: A Nineteenth-Century View of Sexuality;" in The American Family in SocialHistorical Perspective, ed. Michael Gordon (New York: St. Martin's,
1973), pp. 351-52.
5. G.J. Barker-Benfield, The Horrors of the Half-Known Life: Male
Attitudes toward Women and Sexuality in the Nineteenth Century
(New York: Harper & Row, 1976), pp. 222, 293-98, 109-10, 301; Taylor
Stoehr, Free Love in America: A Documentary History (New York:
AMS Press, 1979), p. 125. On theories of racial improvability; see JohnS.
Haller, Jr., Outcasts from Evolution: Scientific Attitudes of Racial
Inferiority, 1859-1901 (Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press, 1971); Harold
Aspiz, Walt Whitman and the Body Beautiful (Urbana: Univ. of Illinois
Press, 1980), pp. 183-209. In a spirit of chauvinism reformers expressed
the fear that healthy German and Irish immigrant women might become prize breeders because native white girls were physically unfit.
6. Whitman, "Passage to India," Leaves of Grass: Comprehensive
Reader's Edition, ed. Harold W Blodgett and Sculley Bradley (New
York: New York Univ. Press, 1965), pp. 415-16.
163
7. Whitman, Democratic Vistas, pp. 395-97.

8. "Letter of Thomas Lake Harris" (18 77), in American Utopianism,
ed. RobertS. Fogarty (Itasca, Ill.: F. E. Peacock, 1972), pp. 105, 107; Karl
J.R. Arndt, George Rapp's Successors and Material Heirs (Rutherford,
N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson Univ. Press, 1971), pp. 149-50. The quoted
words are Arndt's.
9. Andrew J. Ingersoll, In Health (1899; rpt. New York: Arno Press,
1974), pp. 8, 15, 39, 110, 143-44,249, and passim. The earliest edition in
the Library of Congress is dated 1877.
10. Orson S. Fowler, "Laws of Hereditary Descent from 'Combe on
Infancy,' "American Phrenologicalfournal3 (Oct. 1840): 36-37; D.H.
Jacques, Hints toward Physical Perfection (New York: Fowler & Wells,
1859), pp. 44-50; Bernarr A. Macfadden, The Virile Powers: How Developed, How Lost, How Regained (New York: Physical Culture Pub.
Co., 1900), pp. 95-97.
Macfadden's The Power and Beauty of Superb Womanhood (New
York: Physical Culture Pub. Co., 1901), a companion volume to The
Virile Powers, lacks sexual details but is illustrated by photographs of
women clad only in panties. Macfadden, whose physical culture magazines circulated in the millions of copies in the first four decades of our
century and whose advertisements guaranteeing to transform every
"97-pound weakling" into a muscleman graced hundreds of Sunday
supplements, had hit upon a sure-fire formula for making money:
combining nineteenth-century physiological "laws" with provocative
photographs of half-clad athletic bodies.
11. Lorenzo Niles Fowler, The Principles of Phrenology and Physiology (1842; rpt. New York: Arno Press, 1974), pp. 12-14,20-21,36-37,
90-91, and passim.
12. Lorenzo Fowler, Marriage: Its History and Ceremonies (1889;
[first ed. ca. 1841]; rpt., New York: Arno Press, 1974), pp. 193, 196-97.
13. Orson S. Fowler, Love and Parentage, Applied to the Improvement of Offspring ... (New York: Fowler & Wells, 1846), pp. viii-ix,
20-29, 47-48, 81-82, and passim. Typically, in Orson S. Fowler's Creative
and Sexual Science (Philadelphia: National Pub. Co., 1870), pp. 85-86,
the theories are updated to accommodate more recent physiological
discoveries.
Pseudo-scientists were vague about electricity, some attributing it
to the male, some to both sexes. Margaret Fuller hinted that electricity
is associated with sex and that women may have a greater supply of it:
"The special genius of Woman I believe to be electrical in movement,
intuitive in function, spiritual in tendency"; see her Woman in the
Nineteenth Century (New York: Norton, 1971), p. ll5.
164
HAROLD ASPIZ
14. Jacques, Hints, pp. 53-63; Hal D. Sears, The Sex Radicals: Free
Love in High Victorian America (Lawrence: Regents Press of Kansas,
1977), p. 187.
15. Orson S. Fowler, Love and Parentage, pp. 39, 47-48, 106, 133-35;
Orson S. Fowler, Amativeness (1889 [original ca. 1840]; rpt. New York:
Amo Press, 1974), pp. 71-72; John Dubois, Marriage Physiologically
Discussed, trans. William Greenfield (1839; rpt. New York: Amo Press,
1974), p. 101. Dubois cites a number of sexual stimulants (pp. 105-10);
see also JohnS. Haller, Jr., American Medicine in Transition, 1840-1910
(Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press, 1981), pp. 112-15.
16. O.S. Fowler, Love and Parentage, pp. 118, 128-30. Fowler claimed
that he had refuted Malthus and found the cure for overpopulation (pp.
143-44).
17. Henry C. Wright, Marriage and Parentage: or, The Reproductive
Element in Man (1855; rpt. New York: Amo Press, 1974), pp. 237-39,
246-51, 257, 265, 271; Lewis Perry, Childhood, Marriage, and Reform:
Henry Clarke Wright, 1797-1870 (Chicago and London: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1980), pp. 231-38. Perry conjectures that Wright's version of
continence and spiritual love may be another veiled reference to intercourse without ejaculation (pp. 239-41).
18. O.S. Fowler, Hereditary Descent: Its Laws and Facts Applied to
Human Improvement (New York: Fowler & Wells, 1847), pp. 5, 34,
89-92, 130-31, 203-10, 280-81, and passim.
19. L.A. Hink, "The Relation of Marriage to Greatness," American
Phrenological fournal12 (1850): 60-66; O.S. Fowler, Love and Parentage, p. 32.
20. John Cowan, The Science of a New Life (1874; rpt. New York:
Source Book Press, n.d.), pp. 137-39, 40-63, 32-33, and passim.
21. Cowan, Science, pp. 122, 169-72, 95-97, 394-95; A.K. Gardner,
quoted in Barker-Benfield, Horrors of the Half-Known Life, p. 297.
22. Cowan, Science, pp. 109-10, rejects Noyes's method on these
grounds and because accidental insemination is bound to occur.
23. John Humphrey Noyes, Male Continence (1872 [original ca.
1840]; rpt. New York: Amo Press, 1974), pp. 11-20.
Charles Knowlton's pioneering Fruits of Philosophy (1839; rpt. with
intro. by Norman E. Himes, Mount Vernon, N.Y.: Peter Pauper, 1937)
became notorious during the Bradlaugh-Besant trials of 18 77-78. Combining utilitarianism and Spurzheim's phrenological eugenic laws of
"hereditary descent," Knowlton argued in favor of early marriages
combined with birth control in order to improve the breed and to avoid
social disgrace, weaklings, and sexual frustration. He also cautioned
165
against the psychological harm inflicted by zealous anti-masturbation

and abstinence propagandists.
24. Ezra H. Heywood, Cupid's Yokes: or, The Binding Force of the
Conjugal Life (1876; rpt. New York: Arno Press, 1974), pp. 5-23; Sears,
The Sex Radicals, pp. 159, 162.
25. Alice B. Stockham, Karezza: Ethics of Marriage (1896; rpt. New
York: Arno Press, 1974), pp. 13-14.
26. Ibid., 60-62, 108-11. On sexual ecstasy, see Wayland Young, Eros
Denied: Sex in Western Society (New York: Grove Press, 1966), pp.
169-70.
27. Stockham, Karezza, pp. 21, 99-100; Augustus K. Gardner, Conjugal Sins against the Laws of Life and Health (1870; rpt. New York:
Arno Press, 1974), pp. 162-63. For similar statements on sperm, see Dio
Lewis, Chastity: or, Our Secret Life (1874; rpt. New York: Arno Press,
1974), p. 25; Eliza B. Duffey, The Relation of the Sexes (1876; rpt. New
York: Arno Press, 1974), pp. 179-81. The volumes by Sears and Stoehr
contain many versions of sexual theory and practice.
28. Stockham, Karezza, pp. 100, 16, 21.
29. O.S. Fowler, Creative and Sexual Science, pp. 220-21.
30. Ezra Pound, postscript to Remy de Gourmont, The Natural
Philosophy of Love (New York: Boni & Liveright, 1922), pp. 206, 218.
GEORGE H E N D R I C K - - - - - - - - -
8. Washington Irving
and Homoeopathy
Homoeopathy was "significant in its faddish popularity among

the upper classes," notes JohnS. Haller, Jr., in American Medicine in Itansition, 1840-1910, and "it also represented the last of
the major systems to flourish before the onrush of extensive
advances in germ theory, treatment of infection, pathology, and
pharmaco-therapeutics." 1 Homoeopathy was, however, only
one of several systems opposed to traditional medicine: watercures, Mesmerism, faith cures, fads, and other isms proliferated
in the United States and Europe in the nineteenth century. The
battles among the various schools of medicine were bitter and
protracted. Patients were often unable to evaluate the charges
and counter-charges and made use of several of the systems of
medicine.
This essay explores Washington Irving's conversion to
homoeopathy and the controversies that developed after he
embraced this "irregular" medical practice. Irving (1783-1859)
was the first internationally known American writer, acclaimed
for his fiction, histories, biographies, and travel books. He often
worked when he was in ill health, for during his long and active
diplomatic and creative life he suffered from a multitude of
illnesses, some brought on, no doubt, by poor sanitation in
America and Europe and others by his exposure to contagious
diseases during his many travels, while still others were
seemingly psychosomatic in origin.
Washington Irving and Homoeopathy
167
When he was "taking the waters" in Mayence, he wrote to his

sister on September 2, 1822, about one episode of poor health:
I am now convinced, though reluctantly, that this malady has an internal origin, and arises from the derangement of the system, and particularly of the stomach. The anxieties that I suffered for three or four
years in England used frequently to affect my stomach, and the fits of
study and literary application, and the disuse of exercise to which I
frequently subjected myself, and to which I had not previously been
accustomed, all gradually prepared the way for some malady, and perhaps the one under which I at present suffer has prevented one of the
more dangerous nature. I now foresee that it will take me some time,
and patience, and care to restore my system to a healthful tone; all
these external applications are but palliative; they relieve me from
present pain and inconvenience, but it must be by diet, by gentle and
slowly operating remedies, by easy recreation and tranquility, and
moderate exercise of mind, that I must gradually bring my constitution
once more into vigorous activity, and eradicate every lurking evil.2
Irving recognized the element of stress in his illness and also
the curative powers of rest and change of scenery, and he often
chose water-cures, which were usually painless. While he was at
the spa at Mayence, he said, his mind was having a "complete
holiday."
Irving did not dramatize his frequent illnesses when he wrote
friends and relatives. On his trip West in 1832, writing from
Independence, Missouri, on September 26, he noted only that he
had "been much affected by the change of climate, diet &
water" since he had been on his trip. 3 The implication is that he
was suffering from intestinal complaints, but Irving, a veteran
traveler, was obviously accustomed to such illnesses.
When it was necessary, Irving saw whatever doctors were
available, and in his early life, before he turned to homoeopathy,
he certainly had no prejudices against recommending a physician who used "heroic" measures. He wrote on August 29, 1842,
from Madrid, where he was envoy extraordinary and minister
plenipotentiary, that his majordomo Benjamin had come down
with pleurisy, "one of the most dangerous maladies of this place.
I put him immediately in the doctors [sic] hands; had him bled
168
GEORGE HENDRICK
and leeched and succeeded in checking the complaint which

had got under alarming head way." 4
During his last years, however, Irving turned against such
heroic practices and sought relief through an unorthodox school
of medicine, homoeopathy, founded by the German physician
Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843). Instead of such measures as
bleeding and purging, favored by many orthodox physicians, Dr.
Hahnemann proposed quite different approaches. A patient
with specific symptoms was, in Hahnemann's system, to be
treated with a drug which caused the same symptoms in a
healthy person (let likes be cured by likes), and the patient was to
be given highly diluted doses of the prescribed medicine. Dr.
Hahnemann believed that during illness the body was more
sensitive to drugs, and he used minute amounts of the active
agent: 1/500,000 or 111,000,000 of a grain. 5 These dilutions
were then dynamized by being struck against a leather pad. Dr.
Hahnemann said of this procedure: "Homeopathic dynamizations are processes by which the medicinal properties of drugs,
which are in a latent state in the crude substance, are excited
and enabled to act spiritually (dynamically) upon the vital
forces." 6 This spiritual medical theory, painless in practice, was
to appeal in America to a wide variety of people: radical
thinkers, Transcendentalists, religious groups such as Swedenborgians, German immigrants, women, parents with small children, writers, and intellectuals.
Homoeopathy was introduced into the United States in 1825
and began to develop a significant following after 1840; but this
new school of medicine was from the first a subject of controversy. One of the most famous attacks was Dr. Oliver Wendell
Holmes's amusing and scathing "Homoeopathy and Its Kindred
Delusions/' two lectures delivered in Boston in 1842 and soon
published. Dr. Holmes believed that nine out of ten patients
would recover from their illnesses under any medical system
then in use; therefore, medical charlatans could easily point to
their great number of miraculous cures. 7
Using all his literary skills, Dr. Holmes analyzed four earlier
medical delusions, beginning with the belief from the time of
Edward the Confessor to the reign of Queen Anne that the touch
169
of the English monarch would cure scrofula, and ending with

the quackery of Dr. Perkins, whose tractors (two pieces of metal), when drawn over the afflicted part for a third of an hour, were
believed by many to cure rheumatic and other complaints.
Homoeopathy, Dr. Holmes noted, "began with an attempt to
show the insignificance of all existing medical knowledge. It
not only laid claim to wonderful powers of its own, but it
declared the common practice to be attended with the most
positively injurious effects, that by it acute diseases are aggravated, and chronic diseases rendered incurable. It has at various
times brought forward collections of figures having the air of
statistical documents, pretending to show a great proportional
mortality among the patients of the Medical Profession, as
compared with those treated according to its own rules." 8 Dr.
Holmes went on to attack the very basis of this new system and
was sharply satirical in his analyses of Dr. Hahnemann's theories. He was methodical in his demolition of homoeopathic
tenets, building his case slowly and with frequent traces of
biting wit. The published essay was answered almost immediately by Hahnemann's true believers, who were unwilling to
be branded quacks and charlatans.
Attacks such as Holmes's upon homoeopathy by "regular"
physicians were not particularly successful. Many patients
were more interested in the ability of the doctor to bring about a
cure (especially a painless cure), and in his personality and
bedside manner, than in the quarrel between rival schools of
medicine. 9 The homoeopaths spent a great deal of time with
patients, and this certainly contributed to their popularity.
There is no indication of just when and how Irving first
learned of Hahnemann's system of medicine. Perhaps it was
during Irving's travels in central Europe in 1822-23, for he took
water-cures at Aix-la-Chapelle, Wiesbaden, and Mayence,
where he could well have heard of Hahnemann. Irving himself
was vague about his actual embracing of this "irregular" medical theory, and it may be that he had no real interest in homoeopathy until late in life. On December 20, 1853, he wrote his
friend John P. Kennedy jocularly that his "homeopathic physician, who has my head in his hands, and is poisoning me into a
170
GEORGE HENDRICK
healthy state of the brain by drachms and scruples, 11 would not

allow him to attend the dinner of the Maryland Historical
Society.l 0 Irving wrote Mrs. Kennedy on February 21, 1854, "I
have found, in my own case, great relief from Homeopathy, to
which I had recourse almost accidentally; for I am rather slow at
adopting new theories. 11 Irving went on to remark that after
homoeopathic treatment he was able to apply himself to his
literary labors.l 1 Later in 1854, on August 31, Irving again wrote
Mrs. Kennedy on the same subject: "You ask me whether the
homeopathies still keep me quite well. I really begin to have a
great faith in them. The complaint of the head especially, which
troubled me last year, and obliged me to throw by my pen, has
been completely vanquished by them. 1112 By 1852 Irving had
become a patient of Dr. J. C. Peters, in whom he had great
confidence. Dr. Peters contended that Irving gave "cordial approval"13 to homoeopathic principles, and that statement
seems to be true, though it should be stressed that Irving did not
see himself as a special pleader for homoeopathy as William
Cullen Bryant did, did not himself make public statements
about his medical preferences, and did not incorporate ideas
from homoeopathy into his writing.
Dr. Peters (1819-93), this physician in whom Irving had such
confidence, was a New Yorker who had studied medicine in
Berlin, Vienna, and Leipzig. Upon his return from study abroad,
Peters was examined in 1842 by the Comitia Minora of the
Medical Society of the County of New York and was duly
licensed to practice medicine. Perhaps influenced by his study
in Germany, where there were many followers of Hahnemann,
Dr. Peters was drawn to homoeopathy, developed a large practice, and became one of the editors of the North American
Journal of Homoeopathy. He wrote widely on medical subjects,
read avidly the literature of both schools of medicine, and
counted nervous diseases among his medical specialties. 14
According to Dr. Peters, Irving was suffering from dizziness
but otherwise in good physical health in February of 1852, when
the doctor first began seeing him. Dr. Peters described the state
of mind of his patient who was at that time at work on the
massive Life of Washington: Irving, he wrote, "had lately begun
171
to be troubled with vertigo, suggesting the fear of apoplexy,

more from the overtaxed condition of his brain than from any
signs of failure of his general health." 15 For the vertigo, Dr.
Peters prescribed Cocculus (Indian Berries), a specific homoeopathic treatment for the symptoms described by Irving. It
seems obvious that Dr. Peters believed that many of Irving's
problems were caused by mental strain. During the next few
years Dr. Peters treated Irving's minor complaints, but it was
one of Irving's self-treatments, Dr. Peters believed, that helped
bring about a severe attack of asthma. During one of Irving's
frequent catarrhal attacks Dr. Peters wrote that Irving was
"over-persuaded to use Goodale's Catarrh Remedy by snuffing it
up into the nostrils. The discharge was quickly dried up, and, ere
long, some previous tightness of the chest was steadily developed into severe paroxysms of catarrhal and intensely spasmodic asthma." 16 Even before the severe asthma attack, Dr.
Peters, concerned about Irving's difficulty in breathing, had
found that his patient's heart was affected, but the doctor hoped
that the heart disease might be "kept in abeyance."l7
During the years that Irving's health began to deteriorate, the
author clearly had great faith in the professional abilities of Dr.
Peters and consulted him frequently. Though some of Irving's
relatives had qualms about homoeopathy, 18 in the last seven
years of his life he and his family consulted the doctor 598
times, and Dr. Peters often spent the night at Irving's home,
"Sunnyside," when he made house calls. The relationship of
doctor and patient was particularly cordial, as this letter of
Irving's dated June 22, 1857, would indicate:
"My Dear Dr. Peters:-! wish, before you embark on your short trip
to Europe, you will have put up for me a few of those powders which
proved so efficacious before. I hope you will be able to come up on
Thursday, and stay over night with us, and expect you to put us all in
such condition that we will need no physician while you are gone. Do
not fail to come on Thursday, for my nieces would be disappointed not
to see you before you leave. "19
By the winter of 1858-59, as Irving was coming to the end of

the fifth and last volume of his biography of George Washington,
172
GEORGE HENDRICK
his health was much worse. He suffered, Dr. Peters wrote, "from
loss of sleep, attacks of asthma, obstinate coughs, indigestion,
feebleness, and nervousness. 11 Dr. Peters went on to say that the
heart problem was not valvular but an enlargement of the
heart-"its sounds were muffled, occasionally it would falter in
its beating, and, at times, manifest itself in a different kind of
oppressed breathing from that which attended his severe and
open attacks of asthma. 1120 Irving's physical and emotional suffering was apparently great during his restless, sleepless nights.
His nephew, Pierre M. Irving, described one night in January of
1859 when Irving, unable to sleep, was "haunted with the idea
that he could not sleep. 11 The nephew speculated about this
"strange disease, which seemed to want reality, and yet the most
distressing. 11 That night Irving refused to go to his own bedroom
but slept on a couch in the parlor; Dr. Peters occupied another
couch until four o'clock, when he was relieved by Irving's
nephew. 21 A pattern was beginning to develop: Irving, restless at
night and afraid to stay alone, and Dr. Peters often staying with
him. Whatever psychological factors were at work, Irving was
obviously a sick man physically, seemingly suffering from congestive heart failure. Dr. Peters described one of his bedside
watches: there would be signs of "impending dissolution, 11 then
"after many sudden gasps, and starts, and awakenings from this
troubled and dangerous condition, his breathing would slowly
and steadily become gentle and regular. 1122
In spite of these restless, troubled nights, Irving, during the
day, continued his steady work on the final volume of the Life of
Washington. On January 15, 1859, Dr. Peters paid Irving a visit at
5 p.m., intending to return to New York at 8, but Irving prevailed
upon the doctor to spend the night. Pierre M. Irving commented, "The faithful Doctor still encourages us and himself
with the hope that this is only a morbid condition of the nervous
system, which may pass off, but I have at times an ominous
feeling as if we were watching his decline. He also has, no doubt,
his misgivings. 1123 It must have been about this time that Dr.
Peters told Irving about the enlargement of the heart. Almost
twenty-five years after Irving's death Dr. Peters in an interview,
recalled the scene in which he informed Irving of the seriousness of his illness:
173
I remember as if it were only yesterday the day I first told him his heart
was affected ... .I explained to him my hopes and fears. I hoped by care to
ward off any evil result, but I was in duty bound to tell him that there
was danger to his life being brought to a close suddenly at any time. He
looked me straight in the eye without a quiver or a change of color, and
the first words he said were, 'Very well, Doctor, but let me beg you to
mention it to nobody.' ... He had a repugnance to being an object of
sympathy to any one, and he shrank from the idea of having people
watch for the moment when he should fall dead. However, he broke the
intelligence himself to his nephew and secretary.24
Irving's declining health caused considerable alarm among

his friends and admirers. One indication of this concern can be
seen in the reaction of Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes to Irving's
health problems. Dr. Holmes, renowned as physician and author, visited Irving at "Sunnyside" on December 20, 1858. The
two famous men had never before met. At the end of their social
conversation Dr. Holmes made two suggestions to alleviate
Irving's asthma and cough-medicated cigarettes and "Jonas
Whitcomb's Cough Remedy." When Dr. Holmes wrote Irving
thanking him for his hospitality, he sent along supplies of these
medications. 25 In addition, Dr. Holmes wrote Dr. Peters to make
suggestions about treating Irving. Dr. Peters, upon receiving this
letter from an avowed enemy of homoeopathy, replied with
restraint. In his article about Irving Dr. Peters quoted this section of his reply: "You were kind enough to make a few suggestions for Mr. Irving's benefit; unfortunately, all his friends
mistake his case, and he is overwhelmed with remedies for
asthma alone; but, it is right to say to you that Mr. Irving has
enlargement of the heart in addition, and that much of his
difficulty of breathing, and apparent catarrhal trouble, arises
from obstructed circulation ... .If you can make any further suggestion for his benefit, I can assure you that it will be most
faithfully tried, and with a most earnest desire that it may
relieve one whom I love inexpressibly. " 26 Dr. Peters did not
point out in his article that he had treated the patient for several
years and that Dr. Holmes had prescribed after seeing, not examining, Irving, but readers could hardly miss the point.
Dr. Peters quoted only a brief portion of this letter to Dr.
Holmes, but the letter was a long one, with many clinical
174
GEORGE HENDRICK
details, including an extended account of Irving's sleeplessness.

One section of the unpublished portion of the letter is particularly pertinent: "He [Irving] often gets almost frightfully
uneasy; nervous, and unhappy while awake at night-an undefined horror and apprehension seems to possess him-he is
not afraid of death, & the hereafter, but occasionally he dreads
an attack of paralysis, & perhaps insanity; altho he has never
hinted at the latter-still, I am confident he broods about it
- . " 2 7 Dr. Peters did enumerate some of the remedies he had
used to alleviate various symptoms: "musk & asafoetida/'
"Cypripedium/' Coffea cruda, cannabis, and dulcamara. The
effectiveness of the drugs was erratici one might work one
night, then fail the next. Pierre Irving gave his uncle cannabis
one night to no avail, then followed that drug with dulcamara,
which also failed to relax the patient. Brandy and water finally
helped Irving to fall asleep. 2s
In his article on Irving Dr. Peters did not print Dr. Holmes's
rather vague apology in his letter of reply: "I suppose we all do
pretty much the same thing in cases like this, feel our way
along, heave the lead, watch the currents, throw over cargo if we
must, keep the pumps going, the flag flying and trim to the wind
of every day. To speak more literally we all try; as you have done,
all safe means which promise better than mere inactivity seems
to provide. " 29 Vague as this was, it is a far cry from Dr. Holmes's
condemning comments in Homoeopathy and Its Kindred Delusions on this "irregular" practice and its practitioners.
Dr. Peters did follow Dr. Holmes's suggestion, however, and
prescribed "Jonas Whitcomb's Remedy for Asthma" on February 1, 1859. Pierre Irving reported that his uncle had a good night
after that treatment, but two days later he suffered another
nervous attack. 30 Dr. Peters undoubtedly returned to his
homoeopathic treatments after the remedy suggested by Dr.
Holmes failed. Dr. Peters did report, however, that Irving was
grateful that Peters "had studied both schools of medicine, and
unhesitatingly used those parts of each which seemed safe and
truly useful." 31
The biography of Washington was completed, and for a time
in the spring of 1859 Washington Irving, free from his writing,
175
seemed to improve physically. In March of 1859 Dr. Peters was

able to call less often, making professional visits only twice a
week during most of that month, while Pierre M. Irving
watched his uncle's health carefully and made frequent reports
to the doctor. 32 Dr. Peters did continue to spend nights and
weekends at "Sunnyside" when necessary. Unfortunate!~ he
himself become ill in the fall of 1859; he contracted "intermittent fever" and was confined to bed. Since he was unable to visit
"Sunnyside," Pierre M. Irving came to his sickroom to consult
about the elder Irving. Dr. Peters's own physician, Dr. Alexander
Mott, also a follower of Hahnemann, was in attendance during
one of those visits. Dr. Peters requested Dr. Mott to remain
during the consultation, for in case a doctor was needed to visit
Irving at "Sunnyside," he wanted Dr. Mott to be informed about
the case.33
The last weeks and months of Irving's life were obviously
dreadful ones. He called out at one time, "Good God! What shall
I do-how shall I get through this day-What is to become of
me?" 34 How much of this misery was the result of his physical
illness, how much the result of his psychological state, it is not
now possible to know. Dr. Peters, given the state of medicine in
1859, undoubtedly did the best he could. Some of his prescriptions were effective for a short time in alleviating Irving's sleeplessness and his feelings of distress. Perhaps of more importance, Dr. Peters also gave psychological support to the ailing
writer, seeing him constant!~ spending the night when needed.
Unfortunate!~ Dr. Peters was not with Irving during his last
hours, for death came suddenly and unexpectedly: as Irving was
preparing for bed on November 28, 1859, he clutched his side
and said, "If this could only end" or "When will this end"3 5 and
fell backward onto the floor. By the time a local doctor arrived,
Irving was dead. Dr. Peters arrived the next morning and pronounced the cause of death as heart disease.
The cause of death came as a surprise to most people. Pierre
M. Irving later wrote in The Life and Letters of Washington Irving
(1863-64) that he had known of his uncle's enlarged heart for
eleven months, but that the doctor had not expressed "serious
apprehension." Pierre M. Irving did praise the doctor for his
176
GEORGE HENDRICK
attention and skill, "but the difficulty lay too deep for remedy.
No skill could have averted or delayed the castastrophe."36
Curiously enough, though, Dr. Peters was not identified by
Pierre M. Irving as a homoeopathic physician; it was as if Irving's nephew did not wish Irving, in death, to be drawn into the
controversy between two schools of medicine, a controversy
even then becoming acrimonious.
Dr. Peters, on the other hand, wanted to claim Irving as a
believer in this "irregular" school of medicine. The English
homoeopathic physicians made much of their royal and aristocratic patients, and Dr. Peters obviously wanted to help the
homoeopathic cause by showing that Washington Irving, a writer of great fame, was a true believer in the new medicine. He also
had to defend himself, for many people, including Irving's
friends, thought that the writer had been suffering from asthma
and were unaware of his heart disease. Dr. Peters attempted to
set the record straight in a letter written to a relative of his on
December 2, 1859, a letter soon published, pointing out that
Irving did not want his heart condition known, for the author
did not wish pity from those around him. Dr. Peters respected
those wishes, and concluded in his letter, "I never for a moment
thought of my reputation when his wishes and welfare pointed
out a line of conduct as agreeable to him and wise in his eyes." 37
Dr. Peters turned immediately to writing the long article
"The Illnesses of Washington Irving"; it was published, he said,
because he had been asked to write on the subject and because
he "ought to satisfy the wishes of his [Irving's] distant admirers
in this respect." 38 It is obvious, though, that he also wanted to
help the cause of homoeopathy. He presented himself as a wise
homoeopathic physician who had the complete confidence of
his famous patient, as one devoted to the well-being of Irving,
willing to sacrifice his nights at his own home in order to treat
his patient. He showed that Dr. Holmes, one of the best known
"regular" physicians in the country, prescribed for Irving after a
social visit and without making a proper examination. Embarrassingly enough for "regulars," Dr. Holmes's diagnosis was
seemingly incorrect, and even after he was informed of Irving's
enlarged heart he did not suggest the use of digitalis. (It should
177
be noted, however, that an autopsy was not performed and that it

was Dr. Peters who listed "enlarged heart" as the cause of death.
Modern readers may well question the ethical conduct of Dr.
Peters in revealing intimate details gained from consultations
with Washington Irving and also the professional conduct of Dr.
Holmes in prescribing remedies without thoroughly examining
a patient.) Nineteenth-century readers who came upon "The
Illnesses of Washington Irving" were undoubtedly impressed,
for Dr. Peters presented his case effectively. General readers,
however, did not see the article in the North American Journal of
Homoeopathy, since it was a professional journal for homoeopathic physicians. Most readers learned about Irving's last
illnesses in The Life and Letters of Washington Irving by his
nephew Pierre M. Irving. In this four-volume biography published by G. P. Putnam in 1863-64, Dr. Peters is mentioned
favorably but is not identified as an "irregular" physician. Since
some of Irving's relatives had not been enthusiastic about homoeopathy, and since many people regarded homoeopathic physicians as quacks and charlatans, it is likely that Irving's nephew
in the 1863 biography was attempting to ensure his uncle's
respectability by wiping his slate virtually clean of involvement
with what many thought to be a pseudo-medical science.
Notes---------------------------------------------
1. John S. Haller, Jr., American Medicine in Transition, 1840-1910

(Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press, 1981), p. 106. I have used the spelling
homoeopathy in the text of this essay, but another accepted spelling,
homeopathy, is often found in titles and in quotations.
2. Washington Irving Letters, ed. by Ralph M. Aderman, Herbert L.
Kleinfield, and Jenifer S. Banks (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1978-82),
1:703. For accounts of Washington Irving's many health problems, see
Stanley T. Williams, The Life of Washington Irving, 2 vols. (New York:
Oxford Univ. Press, 1935).
3. Washington Irving Letters, 2:725.
4. Ibid., 3:304.
5. For an excellent discussion of homoeopathic principles see Martin Kaufman, Homeopathy in America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
Univ. Press, 1971), pp. 23-27.
178
GEORGE HENDRICK
6. Ibid., p. 26.
7. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Works (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1904 ),
9:75.
8. Ibid., pp. 39-40.
9. Kaufman, Homeopathy, pp. 28-47, is particularly good on Dr.
Holmes's "Homoeopathy and Its Kindred Delusions" and its attackers
and defenders.
10. Washington Irving Letters, 4:457.
11. Ibid., p. 464.
12. Ibid., p. 494.
13. J.C. Peters, "The Illnesses of Washington Irving," North American Journal of Homoeopathy 8 (February 1860): 451-73.
14. For a biographical account of John Charles Peters see Dictionary
of American Biography (New York: Scribner's, 1934), 14:505-6.
15. Peters, "Illnesses," p. 452.
16. Ibid., pp. 454-55.
17. Ibid., p. 455.
18. Wayne R. Kime, Pierre M. Irving and Washington Irving: A
Collaboration in Life and Letters (Waterloo, Ont.: Wilfrid Laurier Univ.
Press, 1977), pp. 175-76, notes: "Despite a few of their relatives' misgivings touching Peters' ideas, all the Irvings at Sunnyside eventually
made him their regular attendant." Irving's mece wanted to know if Dr.
Peters were "a man of eminence." She had little faith in homoeopathy.
See Kime's notes, Pierre M., pp. 175-76, for this discussion.
20. Ibid., p. 458.
21. Pierre M. Irving, The Life and Letters of Washington Irving (New
York: Putnam, 1863), 4:267.
22. Peters, "Illnesses," p. 458. The discussion of congestive heart
failure in The Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy (Rahway, N.J.:
Merck Sharp & Dohme Research Laboratories, 1977) includes the following statements, pp. 409-10: "In some patients the major manifestation is marked bronchospasm or wheezing, termed cardiac asthma."
"In advanced failure severe cough is a prominent symptom." Patients
may experience "restlessness" and "anxiety with a sense of suffocation."
23. Pierre M. Irving, Life, 4:268.
24. "Washington Irving's Family," New York Herald, March 30,
1884, p. 8.
25. Kime, Pierre M., p. 176.
179
2 7. Quoted in Kime, Pierre M., pp. 177-78. The letter is in the Berg
Collection, New York Public Library.
28. I am indebted to Wayne R. Kime for this information, drawn
from an unpublished letter by Dr. Peters.
29. Quoted in Kime, Pierre M., p. 178.
30. Pierre M. Irving, Life, 4:272.
32. Kime, Pierre M., pp. 173-240.
34. Williams, Life, 2:239.
35. Kime, Pierre M., p. 239. Irving's niece Sarah was not certain
which sentence he spoke.
36. Pierre M. Irving, Life, 4:327-28.
3 7. "A Letter from the Physician of the late Washington Irving,"
undated clipping, Berg Collection, New York Public Library.
CHARLES THOMAS WALTERS------
9. Sculpture and the

Expressive Mechanism
Writing in the American Phrenological Journal, Orson S. Fowler

predicted in 1846 that the "genial rays of truth" would soon
replace the errors and prejudices of the past. 1 Fowler's confident
prognostication reflected his age's certainty that triumphant
advances in fields ranging from technology and the pure sciences to poetry; philosophy; and the arts would soon transform
American life and culture. American sculpture was no less
expectant and, for a brief time, its theory and practice did indeed
keep pace with advances in science. To enhance the validity of
their work, American sculptors experimented with the disciplines of mathematics, phrenology, and comparative anatomy.
The spirit of scientific inquiry transformed sculpture, esthetically and analytically, from an art of experience to an art of
process and reduced creativity to a measurable quantity that
could consequently be judged on moral grounds. During this
time artists and critics viewed the attempt at such a synthesis of
science and technology with sculpture as a legitimate means for
explicating the mysteries of creativity and making the artistic
impulse more understandable for an American audience. It also
provided an excellent method of evaluating the success or
failure of a work of art. Because sculpture itself was viewed as a
highly specialized form of artistic expression, the successful
sculptor was expected to perfect two skills, one conceptual, the
other technical. He was to be a poet in stone, yet someone
Sculpture and the Expressive Mechanism
181
Fig. 9.1. Henry Dexter's "Apparatus for Sculptors to be Employed

in Copying Busts," patented March 28, 1842.
equally gifted in the skills of the mechanic, the inventor, and the
mathematician.
Sculptural technology might be enhanced with a mechanical
contrivance or a philosophical system as simple as Henry Dexter's sculptural apparatus or as complex as William Wetmore
Story's historic revision of the measurement of the human body.
Henry Dexter (1806-76 ), appropriately enough, began his career
as a blacksmith. After completing an unsuccessful apprenticeship in painting, he began his career as a sculptor in 1838
with a bust of Samuel Elliot. During the winter of 1843-44 he
repaired Thomas Crawford's Orpheus, damaged in transit from
Italy to the Boston Athenaeum. Dexter's most remarkable
achievement, however, lay in his efforts to combine the exactitude of technology with sculptural creativity. On March 28,
1843, Dexter applied for and was granted a patent (the first, I
182
believe, given to an American artist) for what he described as an

"apparatus for sculptors" (figure 9.1). A mechanism for the
transposition of proportions, Dexter's machine required a considerable amount of manual skill to construct and to operate.
Yet his apparatus made the sculptor's task considerably easier.
The device simplified the process of carving. Making a piece of
sculpture usually required three steps: the artist made a clay
model which was cast in plaster; the plaster was then pointed;
and, finally, small pieces of metal called points were driven into
the plaster model at regular intervals. The distances between
the points were punched into the final block of marble by
craftsmen using an instrument that looked like an ice pick.
Studio assistants roughed up the final composition, while the
artist himself supplied the finishing touches. The holes were
then polished away. 2 Dexter's device made it possible to transfer
the clay image directly to the final block of marble by using a
series of calibrated metal rods. Dexter's mechanism also made it
feasible to reproduce works of art for the general public. Because
of Dexter's invention, it now became possible for the average
American to purchase a work of art for display in his home,
above his fireplace, or on a table in his library. 3
To measure the beauty of the human frame, William Wetmore Story (1819-95), on the other hand, developed an involved
literary method founded on heavy doses of philosophy and
history. Divided into four sections, Story's Proportions of the
Human Figure According to aNew Canon for Practical Use (1866)
argues that scientific measurement could be combined with
numerical symbolism. Story firmly believed that numbers
themselves were based upon philosophical connotations. In the
first two chapters Story discusses the ancient prototypes for his
own theories, including the Cabala, a system of ancient Jewish
mysticism, and the canon of Polyclitus. In the third chapter he
dissects the flaws of modern anatomical quantification, drawing on the work of Johann Lavater. And in the final section of the
book Story demonstrates his own practical solutions to the
problem of proportion.
He devised a simple module consisting of three perfect
forms-an equilateral triangle and a square set within the circumference of a circle (figure 9.2). Story's system was practical
~-
D;
,..
2:
r:
!
I
:;
s
D
!l ;
I
~!
...
l
I
s
f
1 s
!
.:
..
.J-/
Fig. 9.2. Wilham Wetmore Story's module of three perfect forms (bottom)
and illustration of the ideal proportions of the human form. From Story's
Proportions of the Human Figure According to a New Canon for Practical
Use (London, 1866).
184
and philosophically valid. The module, Story wrote, symbolized all mankind. The circle exemplified the world; the
triangle, the Trinity; and the square, man's existence according
to divine law. The human figure was measured in terms of
circles, squares, and triangles. The height of the figure, Story
indicated, equaled four times the base of the triangle or five
times the side of the square. An artist could measure every
anatomical fragment by applying Story's canon. Story's most
famous statue, Cleopatra (after 1860), illustrates the perfect
equilibrium between poetry and science, between science and
symbolism. Story even wrote a poem for his statue in which he
compares his heroine to a velvety tigress who broods upon her
fate among an "aromatic pastille" of crushed flowers. 4 Composed of a set of equilateral triangles, the statue exhibits a whole
host of philosophical considerations. According to Story's theories, Cleopatra demonstrated the divine nature of human existence. She represented the soul, the intellect, and the body. 5
A most important scientific event was the discovery by
American sculptors and painters that phrenology could be applied to art. The Scotsman George Combe (1788-1858) introduced phrenology to the artistic community in America. As a
system of human psychology that purported to explain human
behavior, based upon the study of cranial topography; phrenology's study of the skull's surface (figure 9.3) could provide insight into a subject's character that could then be incorporated
into a work of art. From 1838 to 1840 Combe made a phrenological tour of the United States, lecturing in New York,
Boston, New Haven, and Philadelphia. After visiting Mt. Auburn Cemetery and paying his respects at the sarcophagus of Johann Spurzheim, one of phrenology's founding fathers, Combe
journeyed to the Capitol in Boston, where he took notes on Sir
Francis Chantry's statue of George Washington. On October 23,
1838, he examined a painting in a private collection by Washington Allston known today as Jeremiah Dictating to the Scribe
Baruch. The sparkling eyes of Jeremiah, he wrote, expressed the
supernatural, a sentiment attributable specifically to the sentiment of "Wonder." Allston, he believed, succeeded in painting a
figure that exhibited as well the phrenological faculties of Firmness, Conscientiousness, and Self-Esteem. 6
YMBOLICAL HEAD
Defimtwns of Organs as Numbered Above
I-Amativeness, Sexual love
2-Phtloprogemtiveness, Love
offspring
3-Adhesiveness, Fnendshtp
A-Matrimony; Desire to marry
4--Inhabitiveness, Love of home
5-Continuity, Aversion to change
&-Combativeness, Energy
?-Destructiveness, ExecutlVeness
8-Ahmentiveness, Appetite
9-Acquisiuveness, AccumulatiOn
IO- Secretiveness, Reserve, pohcy
II- Cautiousness, Prudence
I2-Approbativeness, Love of pratse
13-Self Esteem, Independence,
dignity
I4--Firmness, Stabtlity
IS-Conscientiousness, Love of right
I6-Hope, Antictpatwn
17-Spmtuahty; Love of spmtual
things
IS-Veneration, Deference
19-Benevolence, Kindness
20-Constructiveness, Ability to do
2I-Ideality; Love of Ntceness
B-Sublimity; Love of Grandeur
22- Imitatwn, Ability to pattern
23- Muthfulness, Love of fun
24--Indivtduality; ObservatiOn
25-Form, Remembrance of shape
26--Stze, Cogmzance of Bulk
27-Wetght, Balancing, walking
28-Color, Perception of shades
29-0rder, Arrangement
3D-Calculation, Countmg
3I- Locality; Abthty to determme
pomts of compass
32- Eventuality; Memory of facts
33-Ttme, Recollection of dates
34--Tune, Harmony of sound
35-Language, ExpressiOn of idea
36--Causahty; Desire to know why
37-Companson, Perception of
resemblance
C- Human Nature, readmg Man
D- Agreeableness, Easiness of manner
Fig. 9.3. Frontispiece from C.H. Burrows, Phrenological Descnptwn (Lincoln, Illinois, I870j, with each mental faculty tllustrated by an appropriate
tableau.
186
In Philadelphia Combe visited Rembrandt Peale's studio, an

experience that would prove to be beneficial for both parties.
Combe applied phrenological principles to a large equestrian
portrait of George Washington that he found in Peale's studio.
Inspired by Peale's portrait, Combe informally wrote in his
notebooks a lengthy phrenological profile which reflected
favorably on the historical image of Washington's personality. In
choosing the appropriate phrenological personality type for
Washington, he rejected the Lymphatic (a temperament that
was languid and fee~le) and the Nervous (a temperament more
applicable to an artL" than to a statesman). Instead he selected
the Sanguine-Bilious profile temperaments characterized by
vivaciousness and mental activity. 7
Combe next mentally "superimposed," so to speak, a series
of phrenological plates over George Washington's head. From
the evidence provided by this comparison, he then identified
the general's most prominent faculties, or bumps: Secretiveness, Firmness, and Caution. The three faculties formed a
chart of characteristics worthy of Washington, "one of these
rare specimens of humanity," he concluded, "in whom nearly
all of the mental elements [were] largely developed in harmonious proportion." The process that Combe used was tedious
and laborious, but, in his estimation, a triumphant success.
After all, he vindicated the popular American myth about
George Washington's character and demonstrated unequivocally the possibility of measuring the scientific accuracy of a
sculpture.
Shortly after Combe and his wife returned to Scotland, they
went abroad again. Inspired by his growing awareness of phrenology's applicability to art, he visited the major cultural cities
of Italy. In Milan, Genoa, Lucca, Florence, and Pisa Combe
studied pictures and sculpture in public galleries and in artists'
studios. After this tour Combe and his wife settled for the
winter in Florence. Here, under the tutelage of an all but forgotten artist, Lawrence MacDonald, Combe made his first attempt
to identify artistic genius by subjecting the masters of the
Italian Renaissance to phrenological analysis. A letter written
during this period of study gives some indication of Combe's
procedure. He analyzed the temperaments of three Italian Ren-
187
aissance painters-Leonardo, Raphael, and Michelangelofrom portraits of them he had seen during his trip. Leonardo and
Raphael, he concluded, had the most appropriate temperaments
for artists as well as the finest combinations of organs.
Michelangelo did not fare as well. When compared to his compatriots, Michelangelo's temperament was judged inferior. He
had a large head, a dark Bilious and Nervous temperament, and a
distorted set of organs, particularly those of Combativeness,
Self-Esteem, and Firmness. 8 Combe concluded that the shape of
Michelangelo's skull detrimentally influenced the work that he
produced. Although Michelangelo's sculpture may have been
energetic and intense, it lacked the finer qualities of "grace,"
"purity," and "sentiment" that Combe found in Raphael's work.
From his study of the history of art, Combe concluded that
being an artist required certain natural gifts that were, in tum,
complemented by certain practical skills. 9 To succeed, the artist had to be of a Nervous temperament and had to be gifted
with the innate faculties of Form, Size, Coloring, Constructiveness, and Ideality. He then had to combine these with the
appropriate technical skills.
Combe published his conclusions in a subsequent book, Phrenology Applied to Painting and Sculpture (1855 ), which provoked
all sorts of articles, including reviews in the Zoist, Christian
Examiner, and the Crayon. 10 The essay that appeared in the
Crayon, entitled "What Makes an Artist?" argued the relationship between the practice of art and the theory of phrenology,
each position in this hypothetical debate being defended by an
appropriate spokesman: the artist, Professor Hart; and the scientist, George Combe. The point of this dispute was to discover
"how near alike were the results which each method attained."
The article asked a single question whose answer had multiple
overtones. What were the mechanical and mental prerequisites
of a masterpiece? Each participant agreed on the necessity of
technical excellence and that the element of genius distinguished mere mechanical reconstruction from sublime creativity. But the question remained, what constituted "genius"?
Professor Hart argued that genius depends upon discipline, visual analysis, and manual dexterity. Combe emphasized that genius depended not upon intuition, but upon certain measurable
188
Fig. 9.4. Thomas Crawford, Beethoven, 1855. Bronze. New England

Conservatory of Music, Boston. Reproduced by permission.
faculties. While Hart attributed genius merely to an "invisible

power," Combe, through phrenological analysis, insisted he
could calibrate every facet of this mysterious power: that is to
say, he could measure and describe the very temperaments and
faculties constituting genius. Because of the configuration of
the artist's head, a genius sculpted or painted in a particular way.
The results of genius could then be analyzed. Guided by such
phrenological criteria, he proposed that the critic appraise a
work of art not simply because it demonstrated poetic sentiment, but because its intellectual, moral, and physical attributes were grounded in a science.
A measure of the influence that phrenological criteria exerted in esthetic circles is the reception accorded Thomas Crawford's statue of Beethoven (figure 9.4). Before the statue was
installed in Symphony Hall amidst appropriate pomp and cir-
189
cumstances-flowers and poems-it was placed on exhibition

in the sculpture gallery of the Boston Athenaeum. One of the
many admirers who viewed the statue wrote a carefully worded
description of his impressions for Dwight's Journal of Music. 11
He described the statue to its last detail, from its golden bronze
color to Beethoven's fanciful dress. The composer held under his
left arm a sheet of music inscribed with the opening lines of
Schiller's "Ode to Joy," the theme for the Choral Symphony.
Sublime and majestical, Crawford's Beethoven was never considered by his contemporaries to be a realistic portrait. It did not
portray Beethoven the man with his warts, lines, and creases,
but Beethoven the creative genius. In Crawford's conception,
the sublime beauty of the composer's music superseded his
personal eccentricities and physical defects. Yet for all of
Crawford's creative liberties, his statue was still believed to be a
precise representation. Beethoven's forehead was marked with
ridges, the external disclosure of the phrenological organ of
Tune, the psychological prerequisite for success as a musician.
The most distinguished sculptor of the age, Hiram Powers,
(1805-73), best demonstrated the applicability of Combe's theories. Powers's most famous statue, The Greek Slave, met esthetic
standards according to those propounded by the latest science.
Stripped to the waist, bound in chains, and destined for a
seraglio, she stood upon a pedestal to declare the virtues of
chastity and perseverance. Despite her obvious nudity, The
Greek Slave was nonetheless pronounced morally acceptable
because she was judged to be scientifically accurate. The features of her face conveyed radiance, beauty, and dignity; her
head exhibited, it was thought, the "beau ideal" of phrenology. 12
Clearly, Powers arranged the bumps on her forehead perfectly to
express the spirituality of her mind.
Powers's familiarity with the vocabulary and concepts of
phrenology was such that he even used them outside the studio
in a variety of other creative and serious ways. He made them
part of his conversational idiom. Phrenology's insights into
human nature helped Powers to understand his own character.l3
Powers also applied his knowledge of phrenology to a critical
reading of the two standards of female beauty dear to nine-
190
teenth-century sculptors, the Venus de Medici and Antonio Canova's revision, the Venus Italica. 14 He analyzed these works of
art to discover their flaws according to the esthetic dictates of
phrenology. To explain why the image of Venus had such widespread acceptance, Powers drew on the insights provided by
phrenology. The sculptor attributed the overwhelming historic
significance of the Venus not to the statue's intrinsic merit, but
rather to the viewer's own phrenological deficiencies. The viewer who worshipped the Venus, he conjectured, did so because of
a distortion in the organ of Veneration, a deformity that produced irrational respect for objects and opinions which had
nothing to recommend them but their antiquity.
He also applied the phrenological gauge to the Venus itself, as
well as to its modem adaptation. Of the Canavan Venus, Powers
made the following criticism: "The distance between the organ
of self-esteem and the chin is extravagant and without parallel
in any head of a great statue of the same size." What Powers
meant was that the distance between the faculty of Self-Esteem
and the chin was distorted. According to the logic of phrenology,
this particular angle also reflected poorly on the artist, to whom
Powers attributed an enlarged organ of Self-Esteem. He accused
Canova of mistakingly thinking himself a transcendent genius.
When Powers judged the original version of the Venus de Medici,
he still retained the meticulous logic of phrenology. He praised
the beautifully shaped head of the original Venus, yet concluded
there was room for improvement since the constituent fragments of the skull were either malformed or misplaced. The
eyes, for example, were much too small for the rest of the face;
the forehead was much too angular; the ears were totally inaccurate. Powers's tedious analysis produced positive results. He
developed new standards of perception and proportion and implemented them in his own work.
Hiram Powers used the principles of phrenology in his portrait busts to capture the illusive qualities of likeness. He
looked for specific visual manifestations or "signs" of character
to support his thesis that cranial shapes reflected personality.
Powers himself insisted that there was a striking coincidence
b~tween the "signs" and those who bore them. To support this
hypothesis, Powers drew his evidence from prominent Amer-
191
ican statesmen, each of whom he thought succeeded or failed

because of a particular phrenological attribute. Powers maintained that Jackson, Clay, and Calhoun were all successful politicians because of "marked perceptive organs." At the same
time, the artist belittled Webster and Everett because of a craniological deficiency in each man. According to Powers, Webster and Everett had failed to carry the sympathies of the common man because they lacked development of the perceptive
organs. Therefore, neither man was able to address himself to
the immediate expectations of the popular will. 15
Despite Hiram Powers's prononcements, Daniel Webster's
countenance was prized both for its physical dimensions and for
its intellectual dynamics. In a text written on comparative
physiognomy, for example, James W. Redfield likened Webster's
bodily and mental processes to those of a bear. Webster's countenance and the phrenological characteristics that it revealed
provided an important inspiration for Powers's sculpture. Between 1835 and 1837 Powers sculpted the Athenaeum Webster;
and later, between 1855 and 1859, Powers made a monumental
bronze statue of Webster for the city of Boston. This latter statue
was met with ridicule as an inaccurate image of a great American hero. Powers felt slighted and offended. He had sculpted in
accordance with the principles of phrenology, yet he had failed.
In 1860, shortly after this setback, he invited the great American phrenologist Lorenzo Niles Fowler to apply the phrenological gauge to a plaster cast made from the Athenaeum Webster. He did so in order to settle in his own mind whether he had
sculpted according to phrenological standards. Fowler judged
the bust to be a success and pronounced Powers's understanding
of phrenology and its application to sculpture without flaw. For
Powers, Fowler's reading represented an esthetic professional
vindication; he concluded that the general public's versing in
scientific theory was deficient. Fowler's analysis of the bust of
Daniel Webster reaffirmed Hiram Powers's belief in phrenology.
So highly did Powers value phrenology that he submitted
himself to a head reading during this visit with Fowler in London. Lorenzo Fowler's extensive reading of Powers's cranium is
now housed at the Archives of American Art. According to
Fowler, Powers's brain was unusually large-a particularly pro-
192
pitious indication since size reflected intelligence. Fowler next

identified the appropriate temperament for his subject. He
judged Powers to have a well-balanced temperament, indicative
of a "nervous susceptibility, with a full degree of vital powers
and animal life, [and] no excess of the vital element." In his
written analysis Fowler mentioned thirteen prominent faculties, beginning with individuality and ending with cautiousness. He implied others as well, including Sublimity,
Ideality, Alimentiveness, Constructiveness, and Philoprogenitiveness.
Fowler's perceptiveness regarding his client's ego was uncanny. His vignette exactly matched his subject's personality.
According to Fowler, Powers was tenacious, "vivid, distinct,
[and] direct." He was plain and frank, his speech temperate, his
habits uniform. He was "hopeful, buoyant, sanguine." And he
was blessed with a good sense of humor. He was also, Fowler
maintained, gifted with the talent of construction, the ability to
construct, invent, and measure-an analysis that fit Powers, the
Yankee Mechanic, like a well-tailored glove.
Fowler's evaluation of Powers's constructive dexterity was
not quite as accurate as it might have been. "Your constructive
talent is good, but as an artist and mechanic, your forte lies in
your intellectual perceptions, knowledge of proportions, and
power to plan and adapt means to ends, more than in the dexterous use of tools."
Powers held two United States patents, one for a file, the
other for a punching machine. The inventor's interest in construction extended to the "knowledge of proportions," as
Fowler described it. Like William Wetmore Story, Powers was
fascinated by the mathematical measurement of the human
figure. In an undated "studio memorandum," Powers wrote of
dividing the human figure into halves. "From the os pubis," he
wrote, [equals] "one half the entire length of the figure." The
memo reads as follows:
From the os pubis to the top of the head-one half of the entire length.
There are equal divisions from the acromion of the scapula to the
bottom of the inner ankle. From the bottom of the pubis to the bottom
193
of the patella is the same length as from the bottom of the patella to the
sole of the foot two thirds each, but we must observe the ancients
generally allowed half a nose or more to the length of the lower limbs
exceeding the length of the body and the head. Second from thence to
the top of the patella, first from the acromion to the point in the spine of
the illium from which the [illegible] the sectus and the sartonius
begin.l6
Hiram Powers's art expressed the aspirations of his age. His

portrait busts immortalized the American hero, his idealized
statues' moral and physical beauty. Science helped Powers to
deal with the intangibles of human character. Hiram Powers's
contemporary William Rimmer, however, rejected phrenology
and instead chose Darwin as his source of inspiration. The
connection between Hiram Powers and William Rimmer, artists
who differed radically from one another, particularly in the
realm of scientific theory, can be precisely documented. On
May 3, 1861, Stephen Higginson Perkins (1804-77), Rimmer's
patron, initiated correspondence with Hiram Powers, then residing in Florence. Perkins opened his correspondence by describing a sculpture of a "male figure, life size, perfectly made in
violent action." He then questioned Powers on the expense of
copying a full-sized statue (later to be called The Falling Gladiator) in marble. He also enclosed a photograph of a head of St.
Stephen made in what he described as a "curious manner."
According to Perkins, the artist responsible, Dr. William Rimmer, selected a block of granite, set it upon a barrel in the
woodshed behind his home in East Milton, Massachusetts, and
cut the bust, recording the time required in chalk. Rimmer
expended more than two hundred hours in carving the bust.
Within three weeks, on May 27, Hiram Powers responded.
Not known for his generosity to his colleagues, Powers surprisingly voiced approval of Rimmer's achievement. Powers
praised the St. Stephen for its expressiveness and attention to
detail. "Rimmer," Powers wrote, "deserves the highest encouragement." On November 2nd Perkins forwarded a final letter
that included a photograph of The Falling Gladiator. He reported
that Rimmer was "much pleased" by Powers's interest in his
sculpture. 17
194
William Rimmer (1816-79) was as gifted as he was eclectic. A

sculptor and a painter, a trained physician, and a gifted teacher,
he held positions at Harvard and Cooper Union at various times
during his life. Rimmer's career culminated with the publication in 1877 of Art Anatomy. One of the most intriguing of
nineteenth-century drawing books, Rimmer's Art Anatomy remains a remarkable testament to the creative possibilities of
science, particularly the study and categorization of human
emotions and their physical expression in the human frame.
Rimmer's book is a consolidation of many different sources. To
make his point that emotions can be reduced to a visible formula, Rimmer used an iconography that is decidedly neoclassic. The illustrations for the book abound with broadchested gods and beautifully refined goddesses. The style of his
drawings, however, is intensely romantic, indeed almost frighteningly so. Some of the heads he constructs evolve as grotesque
masks of fear, pain, anger, and disgust.
According to Rimmer's most distinguished biographer, Lincoln Kirstein, Rimmer used as sources for his Art Anatomy
works by Charles Darwin, Johann Spurzheim (177 6-1832 ), and
Johann Kaspar Lavater (1741-1825).1 8 All the systems that Rimmer assimilated in his sculpture and his writings, however,
shared one element. Each attempted to define human personality within the perimeters of comparative anatomy. George
Combe, for instance, attempted in Elements of Phrenology to
compare the organ of Constructiveness in the beaver and the bee
to that of man. 19 Lavater's definition of comparative anatomy
was even more flexible. 2 For Lavater it was possible to couple
man with a frog, man with an elephant, or man with any other
fauna that moved beneath the arch of nature. The flexibility of
Lavater's thesis becomes apparent if we examine a plate within
his work (figure 9.5). In one instance he compared two human
faces with their bestial counterparts: an ox and a monkey. The
results of the pairing with an ox are not particularly convincing.
The only signs of compatibility are the shape and focus of the
eyes and the relationship of the head to the shoulders. The
comparison with the monkey is more conclusive because the
monkey is the creature who most resembles man. The only
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Fig. 9.5. Johann Lavater's comparison of human taces with those

of a monkey and an ox. From his Essays on Physiognomy (London,
1804), 3:138.
No.28
He.ui of Chimpanzee
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Fig. 9.6 . Rimmer's evolutionary scale comparing human and ape profiles. From his Art Anatomy (Boston, 1877), p. 8.
197
difference is that the ape's skull is more compressed than the

angular visage of the human face.
Rimmer's specific interpretation of comparative anatomy,
adapted largely from Darwin's theory of evolution, is to be
found in his Art Anatomy, a pictorial statement of profound
artistic significance that challenged the refinement, perfection,
and delicacy of Hiram Powers's sculpture. Powers's art was an art
of concealment. His statues are precise and succinct. His
achievement can be reconstructed only through the eyes of
nineteenth-century scientists and writers. Rimmer's drawings
for Art Anatomy, however, are vigorous, energetic visualizations
of human emotions in which every tissue, every fragment, every
feature is clearly displayed. What Powers hid beneath the surface of his work, William Rimmer now revealed to student and
critic alike. Rimmer's skill as a draftsman matched his curiosity
as a scientist. For example, under the heading of "Skulls of Men
and Apes Compared," Rimmer produced an evolutionary scale
like that of Darwin's (figure 9.6). To trace the progressive development of ape into man, Rimmer defined ten separate steps.
At one end of the scale he placed an ape, at the other a fully
developed Caucasian. Moving up the scale, from left to right,
the animal disappears completely. Moving in the opposite direction, man is totally subsumed by the ape. When dealing with
what he labeled "mixed types of heads/' Rimmer altered any
suggestions of linear progression to demonstrate that man was
simultaneously human and bestial. By altering what he called
the planes of the face-the section in front and back of the
ears-Rimmer was able to combine man with ape in the same
human profile (figure 9. 7). Within the creative context of his Art
Anatomy, Rimmer was not content with the obvious or the
simplistic. Under the heading "Expression-Resistant" (p. 50),
Rimmer listed three separate profiles: the profile of a classical
head, that of an ape, and that of a lion. The classical head
epitomized an aura of emotional restraint; the head of the ape,
man's anthropological ancestor; the head of the lion, man's
nobility.
Rimmer's illustrations dissect the origins and physical manifestations of the human psyche. The plates for his Art Anatomy
198
represented a revolution in thinking about art and man. His

drawings questioned the assumptions of nineteenth-century
sculpture, which was stylistically placid, calm, and composed.
They challenged the naive moralism that previously lay at the
heart of scientific inquiry-that man was perfectible and that
science could prove his divinity. Nineteenth-century audiences
viewed phrenologically inspired sculpture, for instance, with
the same piousness that they once studied the landscapes of
Asher B. Durand. God, the Great Designer, planned everything
from trees and leaves to temperaments and personality. Influenced by recent advances in science, Rimmer, on the other
hand, suggested that man was no longer a divine creature. He
was no longer noble, like a lioni he was morally fallible, simply
another species in the long evolutionary process.
Rimmer acquired his radical theories from Darwin and used
them creatively to enhance both his writing and his sculpture.
In his epic poem Phillip and Stephen William Rimmer wrote of
the human condition by utilizing the metaphor of comparative
anatomy. 21 A long, rambling discourse similar to Edgar Allan
Poe's "The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion," Phillip and
Stephen is a virtual bestiary in which Phillip represents the ideal
life and Stephen, the grotesque. The unpublished manuscript is
filled with characters that combine the human with the bestial.
Rimmer labeled one of his characters a "troglodyte" (p. 157).
The hero of the tale, Phillip, confronts a beast, a Chimeran
Shadow, an animal with the agility and grace of a tiger (pp.
47-49). Victimized by his own lust, another hapless creature
rises like a lion with "shaggy front [to] rend the lightning with
his savage claws" (p. 77). Gazing into the vacuity of his soul, a
fallen angel assumes the guise of a "lion in human form" (p.
139).
Similarly, Rimmer's sculpture reflects the human savagery
that is contained in his writing. His sculpture Fighting Lions
visually paraphrases his writing (figure 9.8). Two dynamic
forces are locked in a life and death struggle, the results of which
are never fully resolved. And in his Dying Centaur (ca. 1871)
Rimmer combined the human element with the body of an
animal, thus creating an intense muscular knot of reciprocal
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Fig. 9.7. Rimmer's illustration of heads combmmg human and animal

characteristics. From Art Anatomy (Boston, 1877), p. 11.
Fig. 9.8. William R1mmer, F1ghtmg Lions, ca. 1871. Bronze. Metropolitan
Museum of Art, gift of Damel Chester French. All nghts reserved.
movement and complementary anatomy that functions on a

poetic level as a study on the pathos of death.
As the spiritual values of the nineteenth century quickly
receded into the past, William Wetmore Story reminded his
readers that all American art, whether painting, sculpture, or
literature, conformed to a precise model, a paradigm that was
simultaneously beautiful and practical. In his Conversations in a
Studio, published in 1890, Story summarized the view, dominant in nineteenth-century America, that art expressed a union
between "the mechanical and the poetic." 22 Inspired by the
201
claims of science, American sculptors widely accepted views

such as Story's. Sculpture was poetic and scientific and didactic.
This paradigm, however, was collapsing just about the time
Story stated it.
The ideal of achieving a balance between poetic exuberance
and scientific discipline proved short-lived. After seeing The
Greek Slave in the Lyceum in New York City during the autumn
of 1849, an unnamed critic seemed to sense that Hiram Powers's
perfect fusion of poetic inspiration with scientific craft represented a rapidly fading ideal. An era in American culture was
coming to an end. The correspondent concluded his remarks on
a note of poignancy: "Tempora mutant et nos mutamur in
illis." 23 Times change and we must change with them. Times
did indeed change, and with them so did American sculptural
theory.
Science, which was once welcomed as the handmaiden of
sculpture, was soon even seen as a threat. Edward Augustus
Brackett (1818-1908), whose bust of Washington Allston
(1843-44) remains an exquisite testimony to the Romantic Age,
wrote a poem toward the end of his life entitled "Pseudo-Science." Brackett did not mean phrenology, physiognomy, or spiritualism, which he himself practiced. Instead, he meant Charles
Darwin and his American followers. Brackett felt that Darwin
had destroyed the secrets of Divine Creation and thereby threatened the hope of mankind. He even feared that the light of the
radium tube would supersede the rays of the sun. He ended his
poem on a dire warning of the consequences of scientific research. Science, he lamented, produced not enlightenment, but
instead gloom and fear:
Far way in Life's mid-ocean
Where the waves have ceased their motion
Freighted with its speculations,Dreary, gloomy speculations,
That have cursed the life of nations,Drifts this scientific bark,
Crumbling, rotting, in the dark.24
202
By the dawn of the twentieth century the forces of progress

had forever altered the delicate balance between science and
morality. The study of science became a specialized discipline,
no longer accessible to the amateur. The artist responded by
developing painting and sculpture not so much as an expressive
mechanism, but as a self-contained entity defined according to
its own intrinsic rules. In the modem esthetic world the symbiosis between sculpture and science no longer existed, because
it was no longer relevant.
Notes--------------------------------------------1. Editorial note on H.R. Schetterly, "The Millenium," American
Phrenologicalfournal8 (1846): 202-3.
2. For Nathaniel Hawthorne's discussion of this process, see
"Kenyon's Studio," The Marble Faun (New York: Modern Library,
1937), pp. 655-56.
3. Multiples of popular pieces of sculpture were quite common. It
has been estimated that seventy busts of The Greek Slave were made.
Fifty copies of Randolph Rogers's Nydia (1856) were also constructed.
4. W.W. Story, Dwight's fournal of Music 25 (Sept. 16, 1865): 97.
5. In Story's Proportions of the Human Figure (London: Chapman
and Hall, 1866); see particularly pp. 3 and 42-56.
6. George Combe, Notes on the United States of North America
during a Phrenological Visit in 1839-40 (Edinburgh: Maclachlan Stewart, 1841) 1:122-23.
7. Ibid., pp. 341-43.
8. Charles Gibbon, The Life of George Combe (London: Macmillan,
1879), 2:167-74.
9. My remarks in this instance have been summarized from "On the
Application of Phrenology to the Fine Arts," Phrenological Journal
(Edinburgh), n.s. 79, no. 26 (April 1844): 113-245, no. 27 (July 1844):
225-45. Combe published these articles in book form. The final results
of his research were encyclopedic. The book itself was divided into
eleven chapters covering such topics as the "Constituent Element of
Expression in Painting and Sculpture," and the "Cerebral Development
and Genius of Raphael." The analysis of Raphael's character marked a
rather macabre episode in Combe's life. According to Combe's biographer Charles Gibbon, Raphael's tomb in the Pantheon was opened
and a number of plaster casts were taken from his remains including
203
casts of his skull and his hands. It was from these artifacts that Combe
devised his phrenological reading.
10. J.W Jackson, review of Phrenology Applied to Painting and
Sculpture, by George Combe, Zoist 12 (April1855-Jan. 1856): 406-12;
Christian Examiner 70 (July, Sept., Nov. 1858): 87-95; "What Makes an
Artist," Crayon 3 (July 1856): 218-19, 298-300.
11. The information on Crawford's statue is located in Dwight's
Journal of Music 7 (June 23, 1855): 94.
12. The information on phrenology and The Greek Slave has been
adapted from the Hiram Powers Papers, a compendium of approximately 3,000 newspaper clippings in the collection of the Cincinnati
Historical Society. The specific selection can be identified only as "For
the American; Powers' Greek Slave."
13. Powers described himself as an incorngible child who had once
paddled a Canadian goose to death. He attributed his behaviOr to a large
organ of Destructiveness, a deficiency that in later life he successfully
overcame. C. Edward Lester, The Artist, the Merchant, and the Statesman (New York: Paine & Burgess, 1845), 2:193-96.
14. Ibid., 197-99, 200-202.
15. Henry Bellows, "Sittings with Powers, the Sculptor," Appleton's
[ournal1 (1869): 471 (Sitting No.4).
16. Hiram Powers' Papers, Archives of American Art, Washington,
D.C.
17. Stephen H. Perkins, May 3, 1861; Hiram Powers, May 27, 1861;
Perkins, Nov. 2, 1861; Archives of American Art.
18. Lincoln Kirstein, William Rimmer (New York: Whitney Museum of Art, 1946), p. 11. It should be noted, however, that Rimmer in
his Art Anatomy (p. 140) more or less dismissed phrenology as an
effective source: "There can be no such thing as fineness of proportions
in any person in whom the head IS too large, especially m those in
whom there is that exaggerated protrusion of the frontal portion of the
brain so much admired by phrenologists." Rimmer probably read copies of these books in the collection of the Boston Athenaeum. According to the Fine Arts Committee Report, January 4, 1864: "A class of
students under the instruction of Dr. Rimmer has been admitted to
draw from the fine collection of casts." Archives of the Boston Athenaeum.
19. George Combe, Elements of Phrenology (New York: William H.
Colyer, 1843), pp. 206-8.
20. Johann Kaspar Lavater, Essays on Physiognomy (London: C.
Whittingham, 1804), 2:146-203; see particularly pp. 147-48, and 154.
204
21. In its present form, written in a blue-lined ledger book, the

unpublished manuscript of Phillip and Stephen measures 8 by 12
inches. The book is numbered on alternate pages from 5 to 381. The
numbering is not consistent since some of the pages are missing. The
manuscript contains two small illustrations: one, a Civil War battle
scene between pages 128 and 129; the other, an illustration of an Apollo
figure between pages 264 and 265. The manuscript is in the collection
of the Countway Library, Harvard University.
22. W.W. Story, Conversations in a Studio (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1890), 2:311.
23. "Powers' Statue of 'The Greek Slave,' "unidentified newspaper
clipping, Hiram Powers' Papers.
24. Edward A. Brackett, My House, Chips the Builder Threw Away
(Boston: Gorham Press, 1904), p. 121.
ROBERT C. F U L L E R - - - - - - - - - -
10. Mesmerism and

the Birth of Psychology
Mesmerism is undoubtedly the least studied of the many nineteenth-century "sciences of human nature." Derived from the
healing techniques and so-called science of animal magnetism
employed by the Viennese physician Franz Anton Mesmer, mesmerism developed in American culture in ways that have made
it an unlikely candidate for sustained historical analysis. For
although evidence suggests that the American mesmerists were
remarkably successful healers, few seemed to be interested in
establishing a medical science. Instead, most gradually abandoned their mental healing practices to become spokesmen for a
metaphysically inclined psychological theory. As a consequence, the actual practice of mesmerism languished through
the 1870s and finally expired in the 1880s and 1890s with the
emergence of academic psychology. Unlike other nineteenthcentury "sciences" such as homoeopathy or spiritualism,
which even to this day continue to attract adherents, mesmerism lost its public. It seemed doomed to oblivion, as simply
some irrational and decidedly pre-scientific approach to mental
healing that appeared to have made no enduring contributions
to American culture.
Such, however, could not be further from the case. Mesmerism-precisely because it evolved from a set of healing
practices into a philosophy on the mind's latent powers-helped
forge the intellectual synthesis which enabled social scientific
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ROBERT C. FULLER
thought to take root in this country. For whatever mesmerism's

theories lacked in terms of the criteria established by modem
experimental science, they nonetheless proved capable of stimulating the general public's interest in an entirely new field of
intellectual inquiry. Academic departments of psychology at
the tum of the century emerged, after all, in no small part
because of the popular support generated by the mesmeristinspired mind-cure or by New Thought philosophy and its message concerning the glorious potentials of the unconscious
mind. 1 Thus the story of mesmerism is the story of the
culturally ingrained assumptions according to which Americans first turned to psychology in their individual quests for
wholeness.
Mesmerism now appears as an intriguing historical phenomenon because it focuses our attention upon the cultural as
opposed to the scientific dimension of psychological theories.
That is, mesmerism's tenure in popular American culture vividly illustrates the degree to which a" science of human nature"
will receive widespread acceptance among the general public.
Mesmerism was, after all, the first psychology to filter into the
vernacular and to enable the general reading public to take its
bearings on life. As such it represented the first in a long line of
psychological systems which have attracted followings precisely according to their ability to address problems which arise
in everyday life. For this reason, the process whereby the American mesmerists progressively disseminated their insights constitutes an important chapter in the history of American psychology. And, equally important, the story of mesmerism helps
supplement and counterbalance extant theories which interpret
the emergence of psychology as the triumph of secular rationality over the outmoded supematuralisms of the nation's
religious heritage. A new axiom of modem scholarship asserts
that Americans have assimilated psychological ideas into their
individual world view in direct proportion to their repudiation
of religious beliefs and commitments. 2 Yet, as the case of mesmerism would seem to indicate, those psychological systems
that have achieved popular acceptance in this country have
done so by rearticulating-not replacing-the religious and
Mesmerism and the Birth of Psychology
207
metaphysical assumptions at the core of American religious

thought.
Mesmerism was, of course, not indigenous to the United
States. The German-hom physician Franz Anton Mesmer first
brought attention to this breakthrough in medical science. 3
Mesmer claimed to have detected the existence of a superfine
substance or fluid which had somehow managed to elude scientific notice. Mesmer named this invisible fluid animal magnetism and claimed that it was in fact the most fundamental
reality in the physical universe. Mesmer explained that animal
magnetism constituted the etheric medium through which sensations of every kind-light, heat, magnetism, electricitywere able to pass from one physical object to another. Every
lawful event occurring throughout nature depended upon the
fact that animal magnetism linked physical objects together
and made the transmission of influences from one to another
possible. Mesmer believed that his discovery had removed the
basic impediment to scientific progress and that every area of
human knowledge would soon undergo rapid transformation
and advancement.
Mesmer was naturally most concerned with the application
of his discovery to the treatment of sickness and disease. He
claimed that animal magnetism was evenly distributed
throughout the healthy human body. If for any reason an individual's supply of animal magnetism were to be thrown out of
equilibrium, one or more bodily organs would consequently be
deprived of sufficient amounts of this vital force and would
begin to falter. "There is," Mesmer reasoned, "only one illness
and one healing." In other words, since any and all illnesses can
ultimately be traced back to a disturbance in the body's supply
of animal magnetism, medical science could be reduced to a
simple set of procedures aimed at supercharging a patient's
nervous system with this mysterious, yet life-giving, energy.
Even before Mesmer's theory reached American shores, his
pupils had introduced significant changes which drastically
altered the science of animal magnetism; these changes, incidentally, ensured the landing of mesmerism's tenets on receptive Yankee ground. The Marquis de Puysegur exerted the most
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influence upon subsequent interpretations of his teacher's remarkable healing talents. Puysegur had faithfully imitated Mesmer's techniques only to have his patients fall into unusual,
sleep like states of consciousness. They had become, so to speak,
"mesmerized." This phenomenon was noteworthy because
these entranced individuals exhibited the most extraordinary
behaviors. Puysegur's subjects responded to his questions with
more intelligent and nuanced comments than could possibly be
expected, given their particular educational and socio-economic backgrounds. Subjects might also suddenly recall long-forgotten memories or become conscious of minute details from an
earlier experience. What is more, a select few appeared to have
drifted into an even deeper state of consciousness which
Puysegur described as one of "extraordinary lucidity." These
subjects spontaneously performed feats of telepathy, clairvoyance, and recognition. Puysegur had stumbled upon the fact
that, just below the threshold of ordinary consciousness, there
exists a stratum of mental life which had hitherto eluded scientific investigation. In discovering the means of inducing this
unconscious mental realm, Puysegur placed mesmerism at the
cutting edge of a revolution in the study of human nature.
Not until the late 1830s were Americans given any systematic exposure to the science of animal magnetism. Among
the first successfully to bring this epoch-making discovery to
the attention of American audiences was a Frenchman by the
name of Charles Poyen, who had learned the art of mesmerism
from the Marquis de Puysegur. Arriving in the United States in
1836, Poyen commenced a lecture tour of the New England
states in hopes of persuading his audiences to accept the "wellauthenticated facts concerning an order of phenomena so important to science and so glorious to human nature." 4 Poyen,
however, believed that mesmerism's single most important
function lay less in mental healing than in exploring the somnambulic or mesmeric state of consciousness. His public lectures consequently revolved around an actual demonstration of
the mesmeric state of consciousness and all of its attendant
phenomena which, as he described it, included: "Suspension,
more or less complete, of the external sensibility; intimate
209
connexion with the magnetizer and with no other one; influence of the will; communication of thought; clairvoyance, or
the faculty of seeing through various parts of the body, the eyes
remaining closed; unusual development of sympathy, of memory, and of the power of imagination; faculty for sensing the
symptoms of diseases and prescribing proper remedies for them;
entire forgetting, after awakening, of what had transpired during
the state of somnambulism." 5
Poyen made a practice of "mesmerizing" volunteers from the
audience who came in hope of obtaining a medical cure. Poyen
would then proceed to make repeated "passes" with his hands
in an effort to direct the flow of animal magnetism to the
appropriate part of the body. A large proportion of those receiving this treatment would fall into a sleeplike condition and,
upon awakening, claim cure. Poyen's own account, in many
cases supported with newspaper reports and letters to the editor,
lists successful treatment of such disorders as rheumatism,
nervousness, back troubles, and liver ailments.
Roughly ten percent of Poyen's mesmerized subjects were
said to have attained the "highest degree" of the magnetic
condition. Their behavior went beyond the peculiar to the extraordinary. The formation of an especially intense rapport between the subject and the operator marked the onset of this
stage in the mesmerizing process. The crucial ingredient of this
rapport was the establishment of some non-verbal means of
communication through which the subject could telepathically
receive unspoken thoughts froin the operator. Most mesmerized individuals attributed this ability to their heightened
receptivity to animal magnetism. Some actually reported feeling animal magnetism impinge upon their nervous systems.
They felt prickly sensations running up and down their bodies.
Others claimed to "see" dazzling bright lights. Nor was it uncommon for subjects who had come into direct contact with
these subtle streams of sensation to perform feats of clairvoyance and extrasensory perception. They might locate lost
objects, describe events happening in distant locales, or telepathically read the minds of persons in the audience. Yet, upon
returning to the waking state, they remembered little of their
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ROBERT C. FULLER
trance-bound experiences. They seemed to have been existing in

another realm altogether. They knew only that they were now
more refreshed and energetic; and some even claimed relief
from former ailments.
Poyen's efforts attracted a host of newcomers eager to become
spokesmen for the science of animal magnetism. According to
one estimate, by 1843 more than two hundred "magnetizers"
were selling their services in the city of Boston alone. 6 Growing
public interest stimulated demand for books and pamphlets,
and the American mesmerists willingly complied. Most of the
dozens of works to appear over the next twenty years followed a
common format: an introductory exhortation of open-mindedness, a short history of Mesmer's discover~ a cataloguing of
typical cures, documented reports of clairvoyance and telepath~ and last but not least, a set of do-it-yourself instructions. For
example, one widely circulated pamphlet bore the appropriate
title The History and Philosophy of Animal Magnetism, with
Practical Instruction for the Exercise of This Power. Another
included in its title the promise to explain "the System of
Manipulating Adopted to Produce Ecstasy and Somnambulism."7
Poyen had introduced mesmerism to American audiences by
heralding it as the "science of the psychological constitution of
man." 8 Unfortunate!~ he was not exactly sure what this actually entailed. While a great deal of attention had been given to
validating their observations, mesmerists had as yet offered very
little in the way of a scientific rationale. For his own part, Poyen
hypothesized that "every human being carries within himself a
nervous, magnetic, or vital atmosphere." 9 But beyond that he
had little to say.
Only gradually-and with considerable awkwardness-were
the American mesmerists able to educe a more fully psychological perspective from the observed phenomena of mesmerized
subjects. The first problem they faced was deciding whether
intrapersonal or extrapersonal variables produced the mesmeric
state. Unable to accept the consequences of either, they took a
safer route and chose both. An article that appeared in Buchanan's Journal of Man in 1849 registers the confusion:
211
The established fact, that imagination may affect the most wonderful
cures ... seems to have been overlooked by the early magnetizers; they
could see nothing in all their experiments but the potency of the
wonderful and mysterious "fluid." On the other hand, the antimesmeric party, knowing the powers of the imagination, were blind to
the existence of any other agent ... .lt is probable that, in this matter,
both the mesmerizers and their opponents were wrong in the ultra and
exclusive doctrine which each party maintained-but with the lapse of
time, we now see that each party had progressed nearer the truth. The
opponents of animal magnetism have yielded by thousands to the
conviction that there are forces of some kind emitted by the human
constitution which had not been recognized in their philosophy; and,
on the other hand, many mesmerizers (in the United States at least)
have learned that many of their most interesting results are really the
product of imagination.lO
The American mesmerists were awakening to the fact that

their experiments attested to an autonomous psychological
realm. Well aware of the role that "suggestion" (i.e., the subject's tendency subconsciously to comply with the operator)
and prior expectations played in determining the behavior of a
person in the magnetic state, mesmerists became the first
Americans directly to study the psychodynamic nature of interpersonal relationships.
Most American mesmerists, however, were by no means
convinced that the "imagination" or "suggestibility" could account for their data. They feared that without the admission of
animal magnetism, however loosely interpreted, their theory
quite literally lacked substance. A purely subjective psychological reality was beyond their conceptual horizons. Anyway, it
could not be supported on the basis of the data. Mesmerized
subjects detected the existence of a discrete and even palpable
force impinging upon their nervous systems from without.
Thus the American mesmerists could not feel justified in pursuing the phenomenon of suggestion as relentlessly as did their
later European counterparts. While Charcot, Breuer, Janet, and,
finally, Freud followed the notion of suggestion to a more or less
mechanistic view of intraphysic mental processes, the mesmerists remained committed to their belief that an individual's
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"inner source of feeling" somehow opens the finite mind to

transpersonal domains.
Convinced that their observations could be accounted for
within a suitably enlarged science, the mesmerists offered as
detailed neurophysiological explanations as contemporary
medical research permitted. The mesmerists' journals, incidentally, contributed significantly to the study of the physiological
structure of the brain. The articles and neurophysiological
charts which they circulated throughout the 1840s and 1850s
constituted the period's most significant attempt to correlate
physiological and psychological perspectives on the nature of
consciousness. However, the mesmerists failed to follow a neurophysiological viewpoint to its logical conclusion as they did a
psychodynamic one. The phenomena of direct thought transference, clairvoyance, and prevision defied explanation by reference to neural forces constrained within the brain. As one early
researcher insisted, the "doctrine of animal magnetism is the
connecting link between physiology and psychology ... it demonstrates the intimate interconnection between the natural and
the spiritual." 11 The mesmerists believed that although it is
possible to offer physiological descriptions of any and all mental
processes, these descriptions were not themselves final explanations of mesmeric phenomena. According to the mesmerists,
mental processes, at least those occurring spontaneously to
individuals when in the mesmeric state, demanded an explanation that was at once psychological and metaphysical-that is,
one that testified to the existence of animal magnetism.
The mesmerists thus found themselves committed to a psychological perspective which subordinated both physiological
and interpersonal perspectives about human nature to metaphysical considerations of the mind's participation in a "higher" psychic realm. Theirs was a "science of the soul considered
physiologically and philosophically." And hence, they asserted
that the study of mesmerism simultaneously furthered man's
scientific and spiritual aims. In the words of Joseph Buchanan,
whose career as a midwestern physiology professor led to involvement with a wide range of metaphysical movements, the
doctrine of animal magnetism taught that "positive material
213
existence and positive spiritual existence-however far apart

they stand and however striking the contrast between their
properties-are connected by these fine gradations ... both are
subject to the same great system of law which each obeys in its
own sphere." 12 Mesmerism's discovery of the mind's receptivity to these refined spiritual energies enabled its adherents to
speak of ecstatic self-transcendence and mystical illumination
as lawful properties of human nature. They affirmed that "the
power of disembodied mind and intellectual manifestations .. .fall within the scope of the fundamental principles of
the constitution of man, and spiritual mysteries, too, are beautifully elucidated by the complete correspondence, and mathematical harmony, between the spiritual and material laws of our
being." 13
Unlike Mesmer, who intended to show by his theory how
medical and non-medical healings were but variations of the
selfsame principle, his Yankee followers focused instead on
explaining the commonalities between normal and transcendent states of consciousness. The explanatory model proposed
by American investigators did little more than give psychological focus to discussions concerning man's inward participation
in a transcendent spiritual order. Which is to say, the American
mesmerists had gradually transformed the science of animal
magnetism into a psychology whose chief value lay in sanctioning and engineering mystical states of consciousness.
The mesmerists' difficulty in defining the exact nature of
their psychological science was compounded by the fact that
their work preceded the establishment of the first department of
psychology at an American university by fifty years. Their
theories consequently lacked the kind of specialized focus
which collegiality, corroborative research, and professional associations impart to a theoretical discipline. The audience to
which the mesmerists addressed their theories was the general
public. It would be inappropriate, then, to expect mesmerist
psychology to have developed in accordance with the kinds of
criteria identified by disinterested scientific observers. A psychological theory attracts a popular following not by virtue of
its formal scientific status, but rather by promising practical
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ROBERT C. FULLER
solutions to problems which arise in the context of everyday

life. In essence this means that it must be able to supply selfhelp guides for practical living. And perhaps the biggest difference between America's first popular psychology and the
twentieth-century ones was the audience itself. In the nineteenth century self-help aspirations were not narrowly focused
on specific problems like help with weight reduction or sexual
impotence. Rather than merely gaining control over isolated
behavioral problems, personality change entailed a thorough
transformation. It had to do with reshaping one's entire outlook
on life, being inducted into wholly new meanings of human
existence. The fact that the American mesmerists won over a
large popular constituency ultimately testifies less to the scientific merit of their discipline than to its resonance with the
needs and motivations of nineteenth-century American culture.
Poyen, a Frenchman, was all but oblivious to the close connection between mesmerist psychology and the popular American religious climate. Yet as early as February 1837 a letter
addressed to the editor of the Boston Recorder testified: "George
was converted from materialism to Christianity by the facts in
Animal Magnetism developed under his [Poyen's] practice .... It
proves the power of mind over matter ... and informs ourfaith in
the spirituality and immortality of our nature, and encourages
us to renewed efforts to live up to its transcendent powers. 14 A
high school teacher wrote in the Providence Journal that God
and eternity are the only answer to these mysterious phenomena-these apparitions of the Infinity and the Unknown."15
Americans were apparently more disposed to emphasize the
religious import of mesmerism than Europeans. An early tract
pointed out that mesmerism casts "light on how we are constituted, how nearly we are related to, and how far we resemble
our original. .. God who is a pure spiritual essence." 16 This same
author averred that mesmerism "shows that man has within
him a spiritual nature, which can live without the body .. .in the
eternal NOW of a future existence." 17
The act of entering the mesmeric state was thought to be a
215
decidedly numinous experience. Direct contact with the instreaming animal magnetic forces momentarily transformed
and elevated a person's very being. A fairly typical account of
this encounter related how "the whole moral and intellectual
character becomes changed from the degraded condition of
death to the exalted intelligence of a spiritual state. The external senses are all suspended and the internal sense of spirit acts
with its natural power as it will when entirely freed from the
body after death. No person, we think, can listen to the revelations of a subject in a magnetic state, respecting the mysteries of
our nature, and continue to doubt the existence of a never dying
soul and the existence of a future or heavenly life." 18
Evidently Americans felt mesmerism treated the whole person rather than isolated complaints. They believed that the
mesmerizing process helped them to reestablish inner harmony
with the very source of physical and emotional well-being.
While in the mesmeric state, they learned that disease and even
moral confusion were but the unfortunate consequences of
having fallen out of rapport with the invisible spiritual workings of the universe. Conversely, health and personal virtue
were the automatic rewards of living in accordance with the
cosmic order. When patients returned from their ecstatic mental journey, they knew themselves to have been raised to a
higher level of participation in the very life power that "activates the whole frame of nature and produces all the phenomena that transpire throughout the realms of unbounded
space." 19
Although mesmerism had no overt connections with religion, many viewed it as a new variation of the religious revivals
which had long since become a distinguishing feature of American religious life. Appearing in the mid-1830s, mesmerism was
simply swept along in the wake of the progressivist tendencies
unleashed by the Second Great Awakening. Charles Finney and
others had helped dispose the popular religious climate toward
an "alleviated Calvinism" which viewed sin as a function of
either ignorance or faulty social institutions rather than as a
product of mankind's inherent depravity. Man's "lower nature"
was considered potentially correctable through humanly initi-
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ROBERT C. FULLER
ated reforms. As a consequence, American religious thought

during this period implicitly sanctioned experimental doctrines
aimed toward the immediate and total renovation of humanity.
Mesmerism, with its doctrine of the unconscious, recapitulated the themes of the nation's revivalist heritage almost perfectly. Like the revivalists, the mesmerists preached that
confusion, self-doubt, and emotional unrest would continue to
plague persons so long as they refused to open themselves up to
a higher spiritual power. And mesmerism, too, provided inwardly troubled persons with an intense experience thought to
restore harmony between themselves and unseen spiritual
forces. The mesmeric state, no less than the emotion-laden
conversion experience, powerfully and convincingly testified to
the belief that man's lower nature could be utterly transformed
and elevated when brought under the guiding influence of spirit.
Yet the mesmerists differed from the revivalists in at least
one important respect. Instead of reproaching individuals for
challenging orthodox religious thinking, they encouraged it.
Mesmerism, like so many of the "isms" to appear in the nineteenth century, stood at the far forefront of the liberalizing
tendencies spawned by American Protestant culture. Its doctrines appealed to many whose religious sensibilities could not
be constrained by scriptural piety and instead yearned for a
progressive, co-scientific religious outlook. Mesmerism had,
after all, empirically demonstrated the existence of an irreducible spiritual element at the core of the human psyche. The
mesmerists were certain that their psychological approach to
man's higher spiritual nature would eventually purge Christian
theology of its embarrassing irrationalities. By arguing that
mesmerism "not only disposes the mind to adopt religious
principles, but also tends to free us from the errors of superstition by reducing to natural causes many phenomena," mesmerists provided many who had become intellectually disenfranchised from the churches with a new focus for their
religious convictions. 2o
The mesmerists' discovery of the unconscious perfectly
expressed nineteenth-century optimism and faith in human
progress. Mesmerism, like all other sciences, claimed to be har-
217
nessing formerly hidden forces for human use. As the mesmerist John Dods boasted, mesmerism had climbed aboard that
"glorious chariot of science with its ever increasing power,
magnificence and glory ... ever obeying the command of God:
ONWARo."21 Yet mesmerism went all other sciences of the
period one better. It showed how human experience potentially
extends well beyond the boundaries of the physical senses.
Mesmerized subjects proved that the normal waking state of
consciousness was neither the only nor even the highest, mental condition. A preeminent spokesman for the Swedenborgian
cause asserted that the investigations of the mesmeric state
point to" an entirely new class of facts in psychology." 22 For him
they provided empirical confirmation of "the grand principle
that man is a spirit as to his interiors and that his spiritual
nature in the body often manifests itself according to the laws
which govern it out of the body." 23 Convinced that mesmerism
uncovered the laws which govern the transition between the
two, he concluded that it opened "a new chapter in the philosophy of mind and in man's relations to a higher sphere." 24
The vast amount of literature which Americans produced
describing mesmerist psychology reveals that they had found in
it more than a key to physical health. Its findings, rather, were
lauded on the grounds that "they present a new view of the
interior genius of the inspired Word, and of the whole body of
Christian doctrine." 25 To those seeking confirmation of the
living realities of faith, the mesmerists' concept of the unconscious appeared as a promising pathway by which they might
hope to achieve a felt sense of participation in the higher reaches
of the cosmos. And, furthermore, mesmerist psychology lent
plausibility, legitimacy, and an aura of scientific support to
many newly emerging religious groups. American Swedenborgianism, spiritualism, Christian Science, Theosophy, and
the mind-cure movement all explicitly drew on mesmerist psychology to substantiate their own claims that men and women
had access to higher spiritual realms.
Historical hindsight permits us to view the growth in popularity of these early psychological ideas as following a path
hewn by the very needs and interests which they endeavored to
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ROBERT C. FULLER
satisfy. The mesmerists sold psychology to an American consumer market by first identifying pervasive cultural needs and
then demonstrating their product's ability to meet them. Another point is worth noting. In the process of winning popular
constituency, mesmerism drew its most enthusiastic support
from the ranks of those who were intellectually disenfranchised
from religious orthodoxy. Sensitive to the culture lag besetting
contemporary religious thought, these individuals had the courage to step outside Christian sources in an effort to reconceptualize the essence of moral and religious living. Since its
doctrines were ostensibly those of empirical investigation, mesmerism lent an aura of legitimacy to those seeking reassurance
about their spiritual well-being; at the same time, it reflected
the progressivist spirit of a dawning modernity. The movement's spokesmen repeatedly underscored the fact that mesmerism represented the nation's first non-evangelical interpretation of human nature and yet did so by focusing upon
what one author described as "the point where anthropology
weds itself to theology."26
As Perry Miller has pointed out, the pragmatic character of
the American mind prevented it from ever fully succumbing to
Calvinism and its insistence that the ultimate criteria upon
which human actions are to be judged lie beyond the grasp of
human reason. Instead, the American mind required that "in
some fashion the transcendent God had to be chained, made less
inscrutable, less mysterious, less unpredictable-He had to be
made, again, understandable in human terms." 27 The whole
notion of a covenant between God and his creation seemed to
imply that He had laid down "the conditions by which Heaven
is obtained and he who fulfills the conditions has an incontestable title to glorification." 28 Those willing to be persuaded by the
mesmerists' claim that a continuum or orderly hierarchy exists
between the lower and higher reaches of human nature found
psychology a natural derivative of covenantal conceptions of the
good life. Psychological ideas were, so to speak, the lowest
common denominator to which America could reduce otherwise hopelessly abstract considerations of how to align themselves with the greater scheme of things.
219
Mesmerism, as popular psychologies generally do, equivocated the importance of material (e.g., physiological) or efficient
(e.g., environmental) cause explanations of human nature. Its
postulation of a dimension of psychic reality undetected by the
physical senses made it impossible to reduce the ultimate or
final cause of psychological processes to empirically verifiable
cause and effect relationships. In other words, from a scientific
perspective mesmerism was simply bad psychology. Like most
popular psychologies, its explanatory power was more properly
metaphysical than metaphysiological. Yet mesmerism's inherent inability to specify strictly psychological determinants of
human fulfillment permitted nineteenth-century Americans to
graft the psychological perspective per se onto culturally ingrained assumptions about the progressive character of human
nature. Consequently, they were freed to pursue psychological
investigations without experiencing any conflict with the essential postulates of religious commitment. After all, mesmerism's descriptions of latent psychological potentials redefined the details but kept the covenantal bond between the
divine and human spheres fully intact. Despite the growing
presence of structural inequalities in the socio-economic
sphere, psychologically formulated self-help doctrines sustained commitment to the work ethic promising self-respect,
success, and eternal happiness to all who asserted and disciplined themselves. Those unsure just how to go to work systematically on the outer world could now go to work on themselves
instead. And in all this the nation's first popular psychology
resonated almost perfectly with the Puritan-Protestant world
view at the core of America cultural thought. That is, it reaffirmed belief in the predetermined harmony of the outwardly
disconnected parts of the created universe; in inner adjustment
(faith) as prior to good works; and in the essentially religious
character of the individual's struggle to seek out and then ascetically order his life in conformity with the ultimate conditions of reality.
Mesmerism successfully entered American intellectual life
because it located new experiential moorings for a progressive
spirituality. Its psychological terminology transposed the form
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of personal piety from categories of theological transcendence

to those of psychological immanence, thus accommodating the
conceptual needs of an increasingly pluralistic culture. To the
popular reading public, the mesmerists' descriptions of the
structure of human consciousness straddled a fine line between
religious myth and scientific psychology. However absurd its
references to an etheric energy called animal magnetism might
seem to us today, its metapsychological aura seemed eminently
plausible to a generation enamored with recent technological
discoveries such as the telegraph, photography, and electricity.
Dr. Joseph Buchanan offered perhaps the clearest expression of
the ideological thrust animating the early growth of American
psychology. At the end of a long list of mesmerism's practical
applications, he explained that the "function [of the psychologist] is similar to that of the clergyman, and in fact although the
anthropologist [psychologist] may not be formally a clergyman,
every clergyman should be, for the fulfillment of his own duties,
a thoroughgoing anthropologist [psychologist]." 2 9
Psychological thought emerged at a time when Americans
were beginning to hunger for non-scriptural sources of spiritual
edification. The American mesmerists responded by offering an
entirely new, and eminently attractive, arena for self-discovery-one's own psychological depths. To the mesmerists' way of
thinking, psychological self-adjustment was the ontological
equivalent of reconciling oneself with immanent spiritual
forces. Simply by cultivating one's innate psychological potentials, anyone, even someone intellectually disenfranchised
from churched religion, could feel assured that he was making
progress along the line of spiritual development. Mesmerism
was, then, but the first in a long line of psychological systems
which have attracted popular followings precisely because large
segments of the American public are continuously seeking
ways to reduce their metaphysical responsibilities to more
manageable proportions. Far from functioning in the service of a
secular world view, this, the nation's first popular psychology,
offered both terminology (myth) and practices (ritual) which
neatly transposed the religious dimensions of self-understanding into forms more responsible to the pluralistic character of
modem society.
221
Notes -----------------------------------------------
1. An article by Henry Goddard entitled "The Effect of Mind on

Body As Evidenced in Faith Cures," American Journal of Psychology 10
(1899): 430-98 is especially helpful in portraying early American psychologists' indebtedness to mesmerism and its various legatees. Related discussions of mesmerism's role in generating Americans' interest in psychology can be found in both Nathan Hale's chapter entitled "Mind Cures and the Mystical Wave: Popular Preparation for
Psychoanalysis, 1904-1910" in his Freud and the Americans (New
York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1971) and my Mesmerism and the American
Cure of Souls (Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 1982).
2. See, for example, Martin Gross, The Psychological Society (New
York: Random House, 1978), Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism (New York: Warner, 1979), and Phillip Rieff, The Triumph of the
Therapeutic (New York: Harper & Row, 1966).
3. There are a number of excellent studies of Mesmer and his healing science. The best of these is to be found in the opening chapters of
Henri Ellenberger's The Discovery of the Unconscious (New York:
Basic Books, 1969). Others include Vincent Buranelli's Franz Anton
Mesmer: The Wizard from Vienna (New York: McCann, Cowan, &
Geoghegan, 1975) and Frank Podmore's From Mesmer to Christian
Science (New York: University Books, 1963).
4. Charles Poyen, Progress of Animal Magnetism in New England
(Boston: Weeks, Jordan & Co., 1837), p. 10.
5. Ibid., p. 63.
6. A Practical Magnetizer (pseud.), The History and Philosophy of
Animal Magnetism with Practical Instructions for the Exercise of Its
Power (Boston, 1843), p. 8.
7. A Gentleman of Philadelphia (pseud. ), The Philosophy of Animal
Magnetism, Together with the System of Manipulating Adopted to
Produce Ecstasy and Somnambulism (Philadelphia: Merrihew &
Dunn, 1837).
8. Charles Poyen, A Letter to Colonel William Stone (Boston:
Weeks, Jordan & Co., 1837), p. 6.
9. Ibid., p. 47.
10. Buchanan's Journal of Man 1 (1849): 319.
11. Gentleman of Philadelphia, Philosophy, p. 11.
12. James Buchanan, Neurological System of Anthropology(Cincinnati, 1854), p. 232.
13. Ibid., appendix I.
14. Poyen, Progress, p. 68.
15. Ibid.
222
ROBERT C. FULLER
16. Gentleman of Philadelphia, Philosophy, p. 68.

17. Ibid., p. 71.
18. Practical Magnetizer, History, p. 19.
19. John Dods, The Philosophy of Electrical Psychology (New York:
Fowler&. Wells, 1850), p. 57.
20. Theodore Leger, Animal Magnetism of Psychodynamy (New
York: Appleton, 1846), p. 18.
21. Dods, Electrical Psychology, p. 36.
22. George Bush, Mesmer and Swedenborg (New York: John Allen,
1847), p. 47.
23. Ibid., p. 127.
24. Ibid., p. 13.
25. Ibid., p. 168.
26. Ibid., p. 15.
27. Perry Miller, Errand in to the Wilderness (Cambridge, Mass.:
Belknap Press of Harvard Univ. Press, 1975), p. 55.
28. Ibid., p. 71.
29. Buchanan, Neurological System, appendix I.
ARTHUR W R O B E L - - - - - - - - - -
11. Afterword
The hope of Alfred Russell Wallace, the eminent biologist and

co-discoverer of evolution-that orthodox science would eventually accord phrenology, mesmerism, and psychical research
the status of legitimacy-was never realized. Without denying
them their many successes in effecting cures and without impugning the veracity of eye-witnesses and of personal testimonials about psychic encounters or character analyses, new
generations found the explanations or theories for these phenomena nothing short of bizarre. Explanations in terms of animal magnetism, or of correlating highly individualized mental
capacities with brain architecture, or of explicating the laws of
universal correspondence between the lower and upper reaches
of the cosmos failed to impress the scientific community. In
relying on such explanations, these various pseudo-sciences
betrayed their failure to incorporate recent advances in physics,
biology, and medicine. But even though these disciplines drifted
further and further from the moorings of experimentally
derived data, certified laboratory procedures, and statistical
methods, orthodox science found it could not entirely ignore
them.
They had not only enjoyed considerable popular support but
had raised questions, addressed issues, and posed challenges in a
wide range of areas that later sciences were forced to confront.
Wallace's hope did, in some modest measure, come to be realized: these pseudo-sciences created the environment and prepared the public mind for contemplating theories or research
224
ARTHUR WROBEL
ranging from neurobiology, psychology, parapsychology, evolution, and anthropology to bio-dynamic gardening.
Gall's study of cerebral localization generated such controversy that it forced both his detractors and his defenders to
determine the relationship of the brain to the mind. Using
ablation or surgical excision, Marie-Jean-Pierre Flourens
(1794-1867), Franc;ois Magendie (1783-1855), founder of the first
journal of experimental physiology, and Johannes Miiller
(1801-58) made discoveries that gave rise to experimental neurophysiology and sensory-motor physiology. In pursuing research on cerebral localization based on the physiology of
sensory-motor processes, Pierre Paul Broca (1842-80) discovered
the region of the cerebrum that controls the function of speech,
while Sir David Ferrier refined the cortical map in various
species. Related research on tactile and bodily sensations,
aphasia, and on the relationship between the brain, memory;
and learning quickly followed. During the 1940s and 1950s
Wilder Penfield mapped cortical centers in the brain. 1
Phrenology also paved the road for the triumphant march of
psychology and anthropology. The use of the term "function" as
a systematic term in psychology derives from phrenology, as did
the important correlation between the operation of the mind
and the condition of the brain upon which rests neurophysiology; preventive psychiatry, psychopathology; and psychotherapy. Scientists are even beginning to give limited support to
the existence of certain innate functions. Cortical lesions appear to affect numerical, spatial, constructive, and mnemonic
functions, while the sociobiologists Edmund 0. Wilson and
Richard Dawkins believe that various affective, intellectual,
and moral powers such as aggression, altruism, religion, language, and sex roles are innate as Gall once argued. These are
admittedly of genetic rather than cranial origin, however. 2 Phrenology contributed significantly to the method and theory of
physical anthropology, and influenced the mid-nineteenth-century shift away from ethnology. George Combe studied various
national skulls including non-Western ones, and actively theorized about the origins of races, evolution, and heredity-all
anthropological concerns. The phrenologists also helped estab-
Afterword
225
lish the cephalic index, the ratio of head length to breadth,

which became the mainstay of anthropometry. 3
Phrenology's interest in racial anthropology had related logically and emotionally both to early hereditarian ideas and to
Darwinism. It played a mediating role in the spread of evolution,
natural selection, geology, and, later, socialistic thought. As
Roger Cooter recently demonstrated, it buttressed the notion of
social evolution primarily through the agency of Victorian artisan societies and Owenite socialists, all of whom staunchly
supported phrenology. One might also wonder whether phrenology's optimistic views of human progress stand behind
works such as B. F. Skinner's Walden Two; after all, phrenology
similarly proposed that man's mind could be studied objectively
and his environment modified to affect various cerebral functions.4
Mesmerism's legacy to modern thought is no less impressive.
By uncovering the existence of an unconscious that exerted a
hitherto unsuspected power on human behavior and thought, it
laid the groundwork for dynamic psychotherapy. In a slightly
different guise, as spiritual mesmerism, or spiritualism, it contributed to the emergence of various cults, religions, and mindcures from Theosophy to Christian Science and indirectly to
several cultlike psychotherapies.
The study of mesmeric trances that eventuated in the scientific study of hypnosis and the development of abnormal psychology began with one of Mesmer's pupils, the Marquis de
Puysegur (1751-1825). His demonstration of post-hypnotic suggestion and amnesia, somnambulism, and telepathy attracted
not only charlatans interested in the stage potential of such
phenomena but others with medical credentials. John Elliotson
(1791-1868) and James Braid (1795-1860) experimented with
mesmerism as a potential therapy for neuroses and as an anesthetic, and amassed an impressive number of cures using magnetic trances. s
Related research suggesting that hypnotic effects depend on
the susceptibility of patients to auto-suggestion contributed to
the rise of a psychotherapy based on persuasion and inspiration.
Paul Dubois developed a system of "moral orthopedics"; the
226
ARTHUR WROBEL
Reverend Elwood Worcester used hypnotism and Christian exhortation in founding the Emmanuel Movement; and Emile
Coue based his psychotherapeutics on having patients combine
willpower with the daily recitation of a healing mantra: "Day by
day, in every way, I am getting better and better."6
Hypnotism's uncovering of an accessory consciousness attracted neurologists and psychotherapists, all of whom figure
prominently in the emergence of modem medicine: Alfred Binet, Pierre Janet, August Forel, J. Babinski, Krafft-Ebing, Oscar
Vogt, and Paul Schilder. Freud jointly published a paper with
Joseph Breuer on the effect mental trauma had in precipitating
hysterical attacks and the value of having patients relive forgotten or repressed facts under hypnosis. Hypnosis remains an
object of psychological inquiry and has its own division in the
American Psychological Association. 7
Americans, however, failed to pursue systematically the role
of suggestion in mesmerism that led their European counterparts to the revolutionary discovery of an autonomous psychological realm. Instead, with the Hydesville spirit-rappings in
1848, their attention shifted to the even greater thrill of spiritual
mesmerism. Spiritualism's durable legacy can be felt in the
current resurgence of interest in unconventional or alternate
sources of knowledge, religion, and healing.
Psychical research formally had its beginning in 1882 when a
group of professors of philosophy, medicine, and physics, many
of them Cambridge educated, and even several Fellows of the
Royal Society, founded the Society for Psychical Research. They
set out to investigate, systematically and scientifically, reports
of spirit and telepathic communication, thought transference,
clairvoyant perception, and spontaneous mediumistic trances.
Boris Sidis, G. Stanley Hall, and Freud followed closely the
society's research.
In this country John Coover at Stanford and William
McDougall at Harvard attempted to establish psychical research as a field of university study. J. B. Rhine earned the first
doctorate on psychical research awarded by an American university in 1933. Though Rhine never succeeded in proposing a
working hypothesis to explain parapsychological phenomena,
Afterword
227
prominent physicists have noted their affinity to quantum

physics. The discoveries of Niels Bohr, Albert Einstein, and
Werner Heisenberg prompted many people to call into question
the notions of causality, materialism, and determinism in science, thus providing the kind of framework in which psi phenomena might make sense. Although parapsychology currently
enjoys but token respectability as legitimate research, the
American Association for the Advancement of Science recognizes the Parapsychological Society as a member organization. 8
While spiritualism offered to many cautious hope that profound psychological depths could be plumbed, it suggested to
others the possibility of reconciliation with immanent deity.
Sincere spiritualists began forming organizations during the
latter part of the nineteenth century; the largest and most
conservative of these, the National Spiritualist Association of
Churches, now has headquarters in Milwaukee.9
Spiritualism represents but one variation on a group of
"metaphysical" religious movements. Both Henry Steel Olcott
(1832-1907), the first president of the American Theosophical
Society, and Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, the co-founder of the
Society (1875) and its guiding light, had ties to spiritualism:
Olcott when he witnessed spiritualistic displays in Ohio, and
Blavatsky as a practicing medium. Between Isis Unveiled (18 77)
and The Secret Doctrine (1879) Blavatsky evolved an eclectic
synthesis of Eastern and Western religions in order to discover
the essential unity of primordial truths in all religions. Theosophical doctrines are typical of most occult religions: the
immanence of spirit or life energy that animates the material
creation and gives form to matter; the universe's evolution
including individual and planetary rebirths; man as a spark of
God which evolved into individual consciousness or human
ego; and the psychical powers latent in man. 10
Theosophy has fragmented among various autonomous organizations, less over doctrinal than over personal differences,
the predictable outcome of a religion whose leaders claim special and authoritative revelations. Alice Tingley built her Theosophical City at Point Lorna in San Diego in 1900, and Dr.
Rudolf Steiner, a Goethe authority and leader of the German
228
ARTHUR WROBEL
section of the society, broke with Annie Besant's leadership over

the matter of authoritative revelation and founded the Anthroposophical Society in 1912. The Arcane School (1923)
teaches students spiritual wisdom, meditation, and discipline
through service to mankind as a way of discovering the divinity
latent in one's hearti the Astara Foundation (1951) teaches the
"ancient wisdom" at the same time that it pursues a ministry of
healing using clairvoyance. 11
These charismatic and metaphysical churches teach, as well,
the message of occult schools in earlier centuries-their secret
knowledge can engineer the unfolding of perfected millennia!
society. During the 1920s the Theosophists claimed that the
Piscean Age, or the Age of Christianity, was rapidly drawing to a
close, seeing among newly returned souls forerunners of a root
race that was to develop the Aquarian Age. 12
Many of these occult beliefs are held by New Thought and its
many off-shoots, its popularizers skillfully adding, however,
psychological ideas to spiritual or metaphysical matters. In so
doing, they have created a new form of religious devotion here in
America that teaches the brotherhood of man, the unity of life,
the immanence of God, and the power of right thinking to
influence health, happiness, and personal success.
Believing that most illnesses were simply the result of people's ideas or beliefs, Phineas P. Quimby (1802-66) healed by
psychically implanting images of health in a patient's unconscious mind. His healing triumphs attracted the attention of
Warren Felt Evans and Mary Baker Eddy, both of whom were
powerfully to shape New Thought. Evans's philosophy linked
physical disease to disturbances in man's spiritual being and
health to man's recognition of his Christlike nature. Eddy added
more metaphysics. For her, health and moral behavior reflect a
patient's success in establishing contact with higher spiritual
powers, while sin, sickness, and death reflect errors of man's
mortal mind and ignorance of his own immortal and spiritual
Christlikeness.
Predictably, the freedom of belief and interpretation New
Thought encourages, a freedom that has even allowed it to graft
onto the body of its beliefs advances in psychology and medi-
Afterword
229
cine, has also fostered many branches and sects: The Divine
Science Church (1896), the Church of Religious Science (1952),
and the Unity School of Christianity. 13
The distance separating these sects and cultlike psychotherapies such as EST, Scientology, TM, Jungian study groups,
and Silva Mind Control is minimal. Similarly fascinated with
mystical and altered states of consciousness, all adhere to a
belief in the existence of a psychological reality outside the
mind-body or normal subject-object relationshipi they also encourage people to explore realms beyond the five senses and to
control their lives.
These spiritualist offshoots make healing through the mind
or spirit a major part of their mission. Their explanation of
disease as discord in man's spiritual force which causes an
ensuing imbalance in the body manifested as disease, recalls
homoeopathic theory. Much as homoeopathy does, recent
movements in psychophysiology investigate the relationship
between behavioral and physiological functions. Reichian
therapy includes analyzing a patient's character structure and
dissolving blocks of muscular tension in order to free the flow of
orgone energy-a composite of libidinal-muscular and cosmic
energy-through the body. 14 Even without such esoteric overtones, the healing doctrines of hydropathy and homoeopathy
resemble many of those that holistic medicine or nature pathology currently hold: a comprehensive treatment of the patient, physically and emotionally, and cure through natural
means. Such treatments are designed less to attack the disease
than to treat the patient and, as in water-cure, to make patients
participate in the management of their own disease.
From investigating the nature and dynamics of an ecstatic
trance to spearheading the reformation of man's moral life and
his institutions, from offering proof of life beyond the physical
to the development of a functional psychology and neurophysiology, these pseudo-sciences engaged a range of issues as
broad as the legacy they left is rich. During their heyday these
pseudo-sciences gave credence to the nineteenth century's compelling dream that all knowledge was unitary and could be
ultimately embodied in one grand Science of Man. Whitman
230
ARTHUR WROBEL
termed such a science "omnient," defining it as "nothing less

than all sciences comprehending all the known names and
many unknown." Such a science would integrate all knowledge,
its coherence and orderliness reflecting the harmony and simplicity of the physical creation. In the breadth of their epistemological aims, any one of these pseudo-sciences could lay
claim to being such a science.
Such a view implicitly assumed that science is activist,
studying man in order to improve human nature. Albert Brisbane sold Fourier's ideas in The Social Destiny of Man (1840) on
this very basis, as a scientific study of human nature that could
engineer the unfolding of a new social order. Many of the utopian communities were experiments in practical social sciences. Brook Farm, for instance, was organized to demonstrate
how man's happiness depended on discovering and implementing the scientific laws of human nature and society. Stephen
Pearl Andrews, the social activist, reformer, and anarchist,
urged the first graduating class of the American Hydropathic
Institute on December 6, 1851, to go out into the world and add
to "the science of the true social relations of man." He expounded this idea at greater length in The Science of Society
(1854). 15
This view, that science contributes certain values-utilitarian, egalitarian, and religious-eventually came in conflict
with the new ideal of the scientist and his profession. In the
1870s the new ideal emphasized the pursuit of truth independent of extraneous considerations and even came to regard
applied science as a lower enterprise. 16
This newly emerging triumphant scientism set the rules by
which the demarcation debate was to be fought-namely, on the
basis of so-called "hard" data and methods of verification inherently incompatible with metaphysical concerns. William
James's misgivings-that in rejecting "exceptional occurrences" and mechanically adhering to its mechanistic laws the
orthodox scientific view of the world was partial-fell on deaf
ears. Science's adherence to objective modes of natural law
methodologically made inadmissible the subjective consciousness; it excluded consciousness from both the observer and the
Afterword
231
observed. While the pseudo-scientists might also speak about

experimental proofs and systematic demonstrations, as Mary
Baker Eddy did, they nevertheless doubted the adequacy of
ordinary sense perception or empirical science to unlock the
mysteries of correspondences between the cosmic and mundane worlds. They instead spoke of a "third way" or the use of
the "inward eye" to discover a reality lying between faith in the
scriptures and naturalistic science. 17
Despite its efforts, "hard" science has not entirely succeeded
in differentiating between occult and clinical matters. This is
particularly evident among mentalist self-help movements. For
instance, Dr. Arthur Janov's Primal Scream Therapy and Paul
Bindrim's Nude Marathon Regression Therapy treat the trauma
of childbirth or unhappy childhoods by taking patients back
into earlier incarnations. L. Ron Hubbard, a former science
fiction writer, founded Dianetics, which has patients relive
painful experiences much as Freud, with Joseph Breuer, had
subjects relive traumatic experiences under hypnosis in a process called abreaction therapy. With the best of American pragmatism, all can claim that their systems are empirical (they
work as therapies) and are secular.l 8
Beyond the fact that pseudo-sciences so often provide the
impetus for new research, their study and very presence are
valuable for other reasons. No doubt their resiliency and even
current proliferation are in no small measure due to the fact that
they entertain matters that orthodox science dismisses as unknowable. In its commitment to quantification and objectivity;
so its detractors charge, "normal" science ignores the wonder
and mystery of the world beyond the material, narrowly confining its investigations to problems that fit only in the puzzle
of current methodological paradigms or make sense in terms of
"orthodox" data. 19
But among the pseudo-sciences, as the essays in this book
show, man enjoys the reassurance that he constitutes a vital
connection between the material and spiritual, and that his
investigations need not be confined to the pursuit of mere fact
or knowledge but can give him access to meaning and wisdom.
232
ARTHUR WROBEL
Notes ----------------------------------------------1. Harry J. Jerison, "Should Phrenology be Rediscovered?" Current

Anthropology 18 (December 1977): 744-46; Raymond E. Fancher, Pioneers of Psychology (New York: Norton, 1979), pp. 53-58; David J.
Murray, A History of Western Psychology (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1983), p. 144; Thomas H. Leahey, A History of Psychology:
Main Currents in Psychological Thought (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1980), p. 168; Robert M. Young, Mind, Brain and Adaptation
in the Nineteenth Century: Cerebral Localization and Its Biological
Context from Gall to Ferrier (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970), pp. 6-7,
121, 90; Walter Bromberg, The Mind of Man: A History of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis (New York: Harper & Row, 1963), p. 150;
and Murray, History, pp. 319-22.
2. Karl M. Dallenbach, "The History and Derivation of the Word
'Function' as a Systematic Term in Psychology," American Journal of
Psychology 26 (Oct. 1915): 473-84; Eric T. Carlson, "The Influence of
Phrenology on Early American Psychiatric Thought," American Journal of Psychiatry 127 (1970): 535-38; David Bakan, "Is Phrenology
Foolish?" Psychology Today 1 (May 1968): 44-50; John McFie, "Recent
Advances in Phrenology," Lancet 7 (Aug. 12, 1962): 361-62; Richard
Dawkins, The Selfish Gene (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1967);
Edward 0. Wilson, Sociobiology: The New Synthesis (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1975); and Edward 0. Wilson, On Human Nature
(New York: Bantam, 1978); as noted in Thomas Hardy Leahey and
Grace Evans Leahey, Psychology's Occult Doubles: Psychology and the
Problem of Pseudoscience (Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1983), p. 257, n. 59.
3. Ralph Holloway, "The Casts of Fossil Hominid Brains," Scientific
American 231 (1974): 106-15; Jerison, "Phrenology Rediscovered?" p.
745; Marvin Harris, The Rise of Anthropological Theory: A History of
Theories of Culture (New York: Crowell, 1968), p. 99; and Paul A.
Erickson, "Phrenology and Physical Anthropology: The George Combe
Connection," Current Anthropology 18 (March 1977): 92-93.
4. Leahey, History, p. 65; Charles E. Rosenberg, No Other Gods: On
Science and American Social Thought (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
Univ. Press, 1976), p. 218n. 44; RogerJ. Cooter, The Cultural Meaning of
Popular Science: Phrenology and the Organization of Consent in Nineteenth Century Britain (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1984); and
Bakan, "Is Phrenology Foolish?" p. 49.
5. Murray, History, p. 294; Fancher, Pioneers, pp. 182-86; and Bromberg, Mind of Man, p. 181.
6. Bromberg, Mind of Man, pp. 188, 140, 189.
Afterword
233
7. Ibid., pp. 184, 197i and Leahey and Leahey, Psychology's Doubles,
p. 155.
8. R. Laurence Moore, In Search of White Crows: Spiritualism,
Psychology, and American Culture (New York: Oxford Univ. Press,
1977), pp. 138-40, 152, 165-66, 169-74, 198, 209.
9. J. Stillson Judah, The History and Philosophy of the Metaphysical
Movements in America (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1967), pp.
63-72 passim.
10. Ibid., p. 12i Robert S. Ellwood, "The American Theosophical
Synthesis," in The Occult in America, ed. Howard Kerr and Charles
Crow (Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press, 1983), p. 115i Judah, Metaphysical Movements, pp. 92-109 passim.
11. Judah, Metaphysical Movements, pp. 119-45.
12. J. Stillson Judah, Hare Krishna and the Counterculture (New
York: Wiley, 1974), p. 192.
13. Robert C. Fuller, Mesmerism and the American Cure of Souls
(Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 1982), pp. 119-43 passimi
and Judah, Metaphysical Movements, pp. 194-225 passim.
14. Fuller, Mesmerism, p. 163i Bromberg, Mind of Man, p. 222.
15. Walt Whitman, The Complete Writings of Walt Whitman, ed.
Richard M. Bucke, Thomas B. Hamed, and Horace L. Traubel (New
York: Putnam, 1902), 9:96-97i Taylor Stoehr, Hawthorne's Mad Scientists: Pseudoscience and Social Science in Nineteenth-Century Life
and Letters (Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1978), pp. 139-41.
16. George H. Daniels, Science in American Society: A Social History (New York: Knopf, 1971), p. 274.
17. Ellwood, Theosophical Synthesis, p. 130i Leahey and Leahey,
Occult Doubles, p. 190i and R. Laurence Moore, "The Occult Connection? Mormonism, Christian Science, and Spiritualism," in Kerr and
Crow, Occult in America, p. 140.
18. Leahey and Leahey, Occult Doubles, pp. 214-24.
19. Kerr and Crow, Occult in America, pp. 5-6i Leahey and Leahey,
Occult Doubles, pp. 239-40.
Contributors
Harold Aspiz is professor of English at California State University, Long Beach. He is the author of Walt Whitman and the Body
Beautiful (1980) and has published on nineteenth-century fiction and popular science in journals such as the Emerson Society
Quarterly, American Quarterly, and Nineteenth-Century Fiction.
Robert W. Delp is professor of history at Elon College. He has
published extensively on American spiritualism and Andrew
Jackson Davis in leading scholarly journals: Journal of American
History, New England Quarterly, Journal of American Culture,
New York Historical Society Quarterly, and Northwest Ohio
Quarterly. He has also contributed biographical sketches to The
Dictionary of North Carolina Biography (1979).
Robert C. Fuller is associate professor of religious studies at
Bradley University. He is the author of Mesmerism and the
American Cure of Souls (1982) and numerous articles on religious thought and psychology. His most recent book, Americans
and the Unconscious (1986), has been published by the Oxford
University Press.
John L. Greenway is associate professor of honors and English at
the University of Kentucky. He has published on Scandinavian
literature, including The Golden Horns: Mythic Imagination and
the Nordic Past. He is currently researching a book on the
importance of energy to the nineteenth-century literary imagination.
Contributors
235
George Hendrick, professor of English at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, is the author of many books ranging
from bibliographical guides and checklists to studies and biographies of American writers, reformers, and doctors. Some of his
books include: Katherine Anne Porter (1965), Henry Salt: Humanitarian Reformer and Man of Letters (1977), Remembrances
of Concord and the Thoreaus (1977), (with Fritz Oehlschlaeger)
Toward the Making of Thoreau's Modern Reputation (1977), and
On the Illinois Frontier: Dr. Hiram Rutherford (1981).
Marshall Scott Legan is associate professor and head of the
Department of History and Government at Northeast Louisiana University. He has published on medical movements and
history in such journals as: Bulletin of the History of Medicine,
Journal of Mississippi History, Journal of the History of Medicine
and Allied Sciences, Filson Club Historical Quarterly, Journal of
Mississippi History, and Louisiana History.
Thylor Stoehr is professor of English at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. He is the author of Dickens: The Dreamer's
Stance (1965), Hawthorne's Mad Scientists (1978), Nay-Saying in
Concord: Emerson, Alcott, and Thoreau (1979), and Free Love in
America: A Documentary History (1979). As literary executor
and authorized biographer of Paul Goodman, he has edited nine

volumes to date that include Goodman's poetry, political, psychological, and literary essays, collected stories and sketches,
and his novel The Empire City. Words and Deeds: Essays on the
Realistic Imagination (AMS Press, 1986) is Professor Stoehr's
most recent book.
C. Thomas Walters is assistant professor of art at Bloomsburg
University. He has published articles on film, nineteenth-century American art history, and classic American writers in such
journals as Forum, Winterthur Portfolio, Journal of American
Studies, and the University of Michigan Museum Handbook.
Arthur Wrobel is associate professor of English at the University
of Kentucky. His articles on Walt Whitman, phrenology, Mark
236
CONTRffiUTORS
Twain, and nineteenth-century popular health concerns have

appeared in PMLA, the Journal of Popular Culture, American
Literature, and American Studies. He has been editor of American Notes eiJ Queries since 1982.
Index
Adams, John, 125; natural law,

concept of, 127
Adams, Samuel Hopkins: exposes
patent medicines, 64, 65
Alcott, Bronson, 10
Alston, Washington, 184
Althaus, Julius, 58; on
electrophysiology, 52-53, 57; A
Treatise on Medical Electricity,
52-53
American Association for the
Advancement of Science, 227
American Association of
Spiritualism: divisions within,
106-07
American Hydropathic Institute,
82, 230
American Medical Association, 31,
60
American Phrenological Journal,
128, 180
American Psychiatric Association,
30
American Psychological
Association, 226
American Society for Psychical
Research: founded, 111-12
American Theosophical Society,
227
Ampere, Andre M., 51
Andrews, Stephen Pearl: and
origins of sociology, 230
anesthesia: claimants to discovery

of, 22-23
animal magnetism, 205, 211, 220,
223; defined, 207. See also
mesmerism
anthropology: phrenology's
contribution to, 224-25
"Application of Phrenology to the
Present and Prospective
Conditions of the United States"
(G. Combe), 122, 123
Art Anatomy (Rimmer), 194-98
Anthenaeum Webster (sculpture),
191
Babinski, Joseph, 226
Bailey, Pearce: Reference
Handbook of the Medical
Sciences, 66
Bailly Committee, 35
Ballou, Adin, 103
Banner of L1ght, 108
Beard, George M., 66; use of
battery metaphor, 53; defines
neurasthenia, 52, 54; and
etiology of neurasthenia, 54,
56-57; fuses neurasthenia with
Social Darwinism, 56; Practical
Treatise on the Medical and
Surgical Uses of Electricity, 68;
Practical Treatise on Nervous
238
Exhaustion (Neurasthenia), 54,
60
Beecher, Charles: heresy trial of, 12
Beethoven (sculpturel, 188-89
Bernard, Claude, 51
Bernheim, Hippolyte, 66
Besant, Annie, 228
Binet, Alfred, 226
Blavatsky; Helena Petrovna, 109,
227
Bloomer, Amelia, 10
Brackett, Edward Augustus:
"Pseudo-Science," 201
Braid, James: renames hypnotism,
66; uses mesmerism in medicine,
225
Brattleboro (Vermontl Water-Cure,
10, 81-82
Breuer, Joseph, 211, 226, 231
Brigham, Amariah, 30
Brisbane, Albert, 101, 230
Britten, Emma Hardinge, 109,
110-11
Broca, Pierre-Paul, 224
Brook Farm, 230
Bryant, William Cullen: interest in
phrenology; 170
Buchanan, Joseph, 220
Buchanan's Journal of Man,
210-11
Carlyle, Mrs. Jane, 13
Charcot, Jean Martin, 211;
experiments on suggestion, 66
Children's Progressive Lyceum,
106, 107
Christian Science, 37, 113, 217,
228-29
Cleopatra (sculpture!; 184
Collyer, Robert H., 21-42 passim;
background, 23-25; interest in
mesmerism, 27-28; later life,
41-42; Manual of Phrenology, 26;
and psychography; 34, 35, 42;
quarrel with O.S. Fowler, 35;
quarrel with Sunderland, 33, 35,
36; typical "pseudo-scientist,"
25-29; victim of Poe's mesmerichoax tale, 37-39
INDEX
Combe, George, 25; applies
phrenological principles to art,
184-86; applies phrenological
principles to painting and
sculpture, 184-88; and education
and democracy; 13 7; interest in
anthropology; 224; lecture tour of
U.S., 122, 184-86; on
monarchical government,
128-29; phrenologically identifies
artistic genius, 186-87; and
physiognomy; 194; political
conservatism of, 131-33, 135;
shapes phrenology into natural
philosophy; 124
Comstock, Anthony; 158, 161
Conversations in a Studw (Storyl,
200-201
Cook, E. Wake, 114, 117
Coover, John, 226
Cow~, Emile, 226
Coulomb, Charles A. de, 51
Cowan, John: "Law of Genius" and
hereditary transmission, 15 7;
The Science of a New Life,
155-56
Crabtre, Addison Darre: The
Funny Side of Physic, 65
Darwin, Charles, 193, 194, 201
Darwinism: phrenology's role in
spread of, 225
Davis, Andrew Jackson, 100-121
passim; attempts to unify
spiritualists, 105-06; and
Blavatsky; 109; and Britten, 109,
110-11; as clairvoyant healer, 6;
contributions to spiritualism,
115-17; death of, 114-15; defends
spiritualist views, 108, 111;
denounces phenomenal
spiritualism, 107-08; early life of,
101-03; earns doctorate, 109-10;
founds First Harmonia!
Association of New York, 109;
founds New York Spiritual
Association, 105-06; "harmonia!
philosophy" of, 7, 102, 106;
marries, 101, 105, 110; practices
Index
medicine, 111; religious
heterodoxy of, 102, 104-05;
renewed interest in, 113-15;
vitalistic theory of disease, llO
Debatable Land between This
World and the Next, The (R.D.
Owen), 10
Defense of the Constitutions of
Government (Adams), 127
DeForest, John W, 90
demarcation debate, 2, 30-31, 223;
similarities between commercial
electrotherapeutic claims and
legitimate research programs, 49,
51,54, 57, 59, 60,61,64,65,68
democracy: conservative fears
about, 126, 132-33
Dexter, Henry, 181-82
Discourse on the Social Relations
of Man, A (Howe), 129
Dods, John, 217
dualisms, pseudo-sciences profess
to reconcile: mind and matter, 6;
soul and body, 11, 16; spirit and
body, 6-7; spirit and matter, ll;
spiritual and physical, 8, 212-13,
217
Dubois, Paul: and "moral
orthopedics," 225
DuB01s-Reymond, E.M.: and
electrical activity of living tissue,
52
Duchenne, Guillaume, 52
Duffy, Eliza: on semen as man's
microcosm, 159-60
Durand, Asher B., 198
Dying Centaur (sculpture),
198-200
dynamic psychotherapy:
mesmerism's contribution to,
225
Eddy, Mary Baker, 228, 231
Edwards: Jonathan: Freedom of the
Will, 32
electrotherapeutic gadgets: Dr.
Scott's Electric Brush, 58 (illus.);
electric cigarettes, 46;
Electropathic (Battery) Belt, 4 7,
239
47(illus.); Harness' Electric
Corset, 48 (illus.), 49; Heidelberg
Electric Belt, 62 (illus.)
electrotherapy, 49; appeal of,
64-65; decline of, 65, 66-68;
doubts about curative powers of,
60, 61, 65-66; early experiments
with, 52; early quackery in,
50-51; grows in respectability,
52-53; influences on orthodox
medicine, 3; suggestive power of
medical advertisements, 64-65;
treatment for sexual disorders by,
63
Elliotson, John, 23; and hypnotic
therapy, 225
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 6
Emmanuel Movement, 226
Engelskjon, Christian August:
challenges physiological
explanations for neural disorders,
66
Erb, William: advocates
electrotherapy, 59, 60; develops
electro-physiology, 52, 57;
Handbuch der Electrotherapie,
52; prescribes treatment for
neurasthenia, 61, 63; skeptical of
value of term neurasthenia, 56-57
Essays on Human Rights and their
Political Guarantees (Hurlbut),
133-35
Evans, Warren Felt, 228
Everett, Edward, 3, 131
evolution, theory of, 197
Falling Gladiator, The (sculpture),

193
Faraday, Michael, 51
Farnham, Eliza, 144
Ferrier, Sir David, 224
Fighting Lions (sculpture), 198
Finney, Charles, 215
First Harmonia! Association of
New York, 109
Flourens, Marie-Jean-Pierre, 224
Footfalls on the Boundary of
Another World (R.D. Owen), 10
Forel, August, 226
240
Fountain with [ets of New
Meaning, The (Davis), 108
Fourier, Charles, 6, 101, 230
Fourierism, 13, 115
Fowler, Lorenzo Niles: and
"practical" phrenology, 124-25i
The Principles of Phrenology and
Physiology, 149-50
Fowler, Orson Squire, 11, 82, 123,
157, 160i and Collyer, 35i
develops "practical" phrenology,
124-25i on hereditary
transmission, 151, 152, 154-SSi
on laissez-faire economics,
136-37i on "law" of ecstatic
passional and spiritual mating,
152-53, 154-SSi and
millennialism, 137-38, 151i
political liberalism of, 128,
135-36, 137i theories of, on
sexual-eugenic reform, 151,
152-53, 154-55, 160
Fox, Kate, 6, 100, 102
Fox, Margaret, 6, 100, 102
Freud, Sigmund, 211, 226, 231i
research of, undermines
electrotherapy; 57, 60, 66
Gall, Franz Josef, 26, 32, 33, 224i
phrenological theories of, 5,
123-24
Gardner, Dr. Augustus Kinsley;
160i and sexual-eugenic reform,
146
Cove, Mary Sergeant, 10, 81-82
Graham, Dr. James, 65i and
"Temple of Health," 50, 59
Grahamites, 13, 91i interest in
pseudo-sciences, 10
Gram, Hans, 11
Greek Slave, The (sculpture), 189,
201
Hahnemann, Samuel, 3, lli theory
of homoeopathic medicine, 168
Hall, G. Stanley; 226
"Harmonia! philosophy;" 7, 8, 104,
110, 113, 117i defined, 102, 109.
INDEX
See also Davis, Andrew Jacksoni

spiritualism
Harris, Thomas Lake, 10i theory of
sexual abstinence, 147
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 22i
fictional uses of pseudo-sciences,
15-16,36, 39-40i view of pseudosciences, 39, 42
Herald of Progress, 106
Heywood, Ezra: and "free love"
and sexual enjoyment, 158
History of Philosophy of Animal
Magnetism, The, 210
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 31i
"Homoeopathy and Its Kindred
Delusions/' 13, 168-69i and John
C. Peters, 173-74i visits
Washington Irving, 175
homoeopathy; 1, 4, 11, 13, 31, 40,
74, 166, 205i contributions to
orthodox medicine, 18, 31i
criticisms of, 13, 169i and
empiricism, 3-4, 31i healing
theory; 3-4, 168i and law of
similars, 3, 168i prominent
figures attracted to, 14i proving,
4i similarities to holistic
medicine, 229i use of
"dynamization" in, 168
"Homoeopathy and Its Kindred
Delusions" (Holmes), 13, 168-69
Hopedale Community; 103
Hopkins, Claude, 61, 64, 65, 66
Howe, Samuel Gridley; 129
Hubbard, L. Ron, 231
Hume, David, 126
Hurlbut, Judge Elisha P.: and
laissez-faire economics, 136-3 7i
political views, 128, 130-31,
133-35
Hydesville spirit-rappings, 6, 100,
102, 226
hydropathy; 1, 4, 5, 11, 13, 31, 40,
74-79 passim; ailments treated
by; 4, 89-90; as alternative to
"heroic" medicine, 80, 89i
ancient precedents for, 76i appeal
of, 8, 14, 80, 89i contributions to
modem medicme, 31, 81i
Index
criticism of, 77-79, 83-84, 90-91;
decline of, 91; dietetic regimen,
86; discovery of, 75-76; and
empiricism, 4; and exercise,
86-87; institutes of, 79-80, 81;
journals, 82-83; prominent
figures attracted to, 14, 75-76,
87-88; similarities to holistic
medicine, 229; testimonial
successes of, 88-89; treatments,
75, 84-86, 90-91; works about,
79-82
hygiene: and hydropathy; 81
hypnotism: influence on
neurologists and
psychotherapists, 225, 226
Ingersoll, A.J.: and sexual-eugenic
reform, 148
Irving, Pierre M., 172, 174, 175,
176, 177
Irving, Washington: death of, 175;
homoeopathically treated, 14;
illnesses of, 166-68; Life of
Washington, 170, 171, 172; and
Dr. John C. Peters, 171-02
Jacksonian political thought: and
"negative government," 134-35,
136; and phrenology; 135-36, 137
Jacques, Daniel Harrison: theory of
electromagnetic sexual
intercourse, 151-52
James, William, 31, 111, 230
Janet, Pierre, 211, 226
Janov; Dr. Arthur, 231
Jefferson, Thomas, 125, 139
Jeffersonianism: phrenological
support of, 135
feremiah Dictating to the Scribe
Baruch (sculpture), 184
Kennedy; John Pendleton: Irving's
letters to, 169-70
Krafft-Ebmg, Richard von, 226
Lavater, Johann, 182, 194; and
comparative physiognomy;
194-96
241
Life and Letters of Washington
Irving, 175, 177
Life of Washington (Irving), 170,
171, 172
Locke, John, 125
Love and Parentage (O.S. Fowler),
151
McDougall, William, 226
Macfadden, Bernarr, 149
Magendie, Fran<;:ois, 29, 224
Magic Staff, The (Davis), 105
magnetism, 144. See also animal
magnetism; mesmerism
Marriage: Its History and
Ceremonies (L.N. Fowler), 150
Mauduyt, Pierre: and
electrotherapy; 48; on
relationship between weather
and health, SO
Medium, 108
Melville, Herman: phrenology in
fiction of, 15, 150, 160-61
Mesmer, Franz Anton, 33, 48, 205,
213; "animal magnetism"
discovered by; 207; healing
theories of, 5
mesmeric consciousness:
compared to conversion
experience, 216; described,
209-10; discovered, 207-08;
mystical nature of, 214-15;
neurophysiological explanations
of, 212; psychodynamic
explanation of, 210-12;
psychological and metaphysical
explanations of, 212-13
mesmerism, 1, 4, 7, 11, 33, 35, 49,
51, 205-22 passim, 223;
American reception of, 210;
contribution to dynamic
psychotherapy; 225; Emerson's
views on, 6; and empiricism, 5;
forerunner of academic
psychology; 206-07; healing
theory of, 207; intellectual appeal
of, 5, 16; in Lippard's Quaker
City, 36; medical uses of, 225;
and nineteenth-century
242
optimism, 216-1 7i and
progressive religious thought,
218-19i prominent figures
attracted to, 14i as psychology
with religious overtones, 16-17,
206-07, 214-20i and religious
belief, 216, 217, 218i as sinister
science, 36. See also mesmeric
consciousness
millenarianism: and harmonia!
philosophy, 115-16
millennialism, 11, 130i and
phrenology, 127i and sexualeugenic reform, 144, 151i and
spiritualism, 104, 115-16
Miller, William, 36, 101
Moral Police Fraternity, 106
Muller, Johannes, 224
natural law: and democratic
government, 128-29i and
spiritualism, 7
natural philosophy: Combe shapes
phrenology into a, 124
Nature's Divine Revelations
(Davis), 101
nervous disease. See neurasthenia
neurasthenia, 46, 48, 53, 55i
commercial gadgets for treating,
47, 48, 54, 57, 59, 62, 64i defined,
52, 54i as fashionable disease, 53i
Freud challenges concept of, 57,
60, 66i fused with social
Darwinism, 56i and new woman,
54-55i as sexual disease in
women, 54, 66i theory of somatic
origin of, 52, 55, 56i treatments
for, prescribed by "legitimate"
science, 58-59, 61, 63
New Harmony, Ind., 11
New Thought, 205
New York Phrenological
Association: formation of, 105-06
Nichols, Dr. Thomas Low, 10,
81-82
North American Journal of
Homoeopathy, 177
Noyes, John Humphrey, 158, 161i
and Bible Communism, 10i
INDEX
theory of coitus reservatus, 157i
and Complex Marriage, 10
Olcott, Henry Steel, 22 7
Owen, Robert, 11
Owen, Robert Dale, 11, 161i
writings, 10
Owenite socialism, 225
Parapsychological Society, 22 7
Peale, Rembrandt, 186
Penetralia, The (Davis), 105
Penfield, Wilder, 224i determines
cortical functions, 32
Perkinism, 51
Perkins, Dr. Elisha, 51, 65, 169
Peters, Dr. John C.: homoeopathic
physician to W. Irving, 170-77
passimi conflict with Holmes
over Irving's treatment, 173-74,
176-77i diagnoses Irving's heart
disease, 171, 172, 175i relations
with Irving, 171-72i treatments
prescribed for Irving, 171, 174
Phillip and Stephen (Rimmer), 198
phrenology, 1, 4, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13,
14, 35, 144, 180i affirms democratic form of government,
128-30i application to painting
and sculpture, 184-95i compatible with American intellectual
orthodoxy, 126-27i contributions
to anthropology, 224-25i contributions to modern sciences,
30-31, 224i contributions to neurophysiological research, 224i
contributions to theory of localized brain functions, 224i
empiricism in, 5 i as faculty psychology, 30, 31, 123-24i influence
on Whitman, lSi justifies Constitutional rights, 129-3li loses
relevance to political thought,
l38-39i and millennialism, 127,
137-38i and natural law, 127i
"practical," developed by
Fowlers, 124-25i prominent figures attracted to, 14, 15, 124i as
psycho-behavioristic discipline,
243
Index
124; and reform interests, 9; value to writers, 15; widespread
appeal of, as political science,
126-27, 127-28, 138. See also
Combe, George; Fowler, Lorenzo
Niles; Fowler, Orson Squire;
Gall, Franz Joseph; Spurzheim,
Johann Gaspar
Phrenology Applied to Painting
and Sculpture (G. Combe), 187
phreno-magnetism, 11, 32, 42; discovered by Collyer, 32;
repudiated by Collyer, 33
physiognomy, 10; comparative,
194-99; Lavater's comparative,
194-96
Poe, Edgar Allan, 22, 101, 198;
mesmeric-hoax tale "M. Valdemar," 3 7-38; use of phrenology
by, 15; view of science, 39
political science: early American
search for a, 125-26; Scottish
philosophers' theories of, 126
Pound, Ezra, 161
Powers, Hiram: correspondence
with Perkins, 193; familiarity
with phrenological theory,
189-93; judges sculpture
phrenologically, 189-90; works
sculpted phrenologically, 189,
191
Poyen, Charles, 214; mesmeric
lecture tour of U.S. by, 208-09
Practical Treatise on Nervous
Exhaustion (Neurasthenia)
(Beard), 54, 60
Practical Treatise on the Medical
and Surgical Uses of Electricity
(Beard, with Rockwell), 68
Priessnitz, Vincent, 4, 80;
discovers hydropathy, 74-75
Proportions of the Human Figure
According to a New Canon for
Practical Use (Story), 182-84
pseudo-sciences: appeal of, to
transcendentalists, 16; appeal of,
to Utopian reformers, 7, 10-11;
attempt to unify duahsms, 6, 7,
8, 11, 16, 32, 33, 35,212-13, 217;
attraction of, to reformers, 10;

and belief in unitary nature of
knowledge, 229-30; as challenge
to "legitimate" science, 3, 31,
223-24,224-27, 229; congruency
of, with nineteenth-century
American culture, 1-2, 7-8, 16;
creatively used, 15, 16, 37-39, 42,
184-99; criticism of, 12-13;
decline of, 17-18; and
demarcation debate, 2-3, 30-31,
49, 51, 57, 59, 60, 61, 64, 65, 68,
223; and empiricism, 3-6, 8, 17;
and origins of sociology, 230;
reformatory nature of, 7, 8-9; as
religious heterodoxy, 12, 13, 110,
216,217, 218, 227-28; and sexual
reform, 9-10, 144-65 passim;
syncretic character of, 11; as
technology, 29-30, 40-41
psychophysiologic cults, 229
psychotherapeutic cults, 229
psychotherapy, 30, 57, 60, 66, 211,
219,226,231
Puysegur, Marquis de: discovers
mesmeric state, 208, 225
Quimby, Phineas P.: and New
Thought, 228
Rapp, George, 147-48
Ray, Isaac, 30
Reese, David Meredith: The
Humbugs of New York, 12
Reference Handbook of the
Med1cal Sciences (Bailey), 66
Reichean therapy, 229
Religio-Philosophical Journal, 108
Remak, Robert, 52, 58
"Republicanism the True Form of
Government," 135
Rhine, Joseph Banks, 226
Rimme~.; William, 193-200; Art
Anatomy, 194-98
Rockwell, Alfonso D., 60, 64;
describes "general faradization,"
59; discusses physiological
significance of electricity, 53;
Practical Treatise on the Medical
244
and Surgical Uses of Electricity
Iwith Beardl, 68
Roentgen, Wilhelm Conrad, 68

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques:
hydropathic experiences, 77-78
Schilder, Paul, 226
Science of a New Life, The
!Cowan), 155-56
Science of Soc1ety, The !Andrews),
230
Scientology, 37
Scottish philosophy, 126, 127, 130;
wntings on government, 126
sculptural technology, 181-84
Second Great Awakening, 215
sexual-eugenic reform: and artistic
creativity, 154, 160-61; ecstatic
passional and spiritual mating,
151-56 passim; electromagnetic
theory of sexual intercourse,
151-52, 153, 156, 157, 158; "free
love" advocates, 157-59; and
Gardner, 146; healthy body as
moral force, 145; and hereditary
transmission, 148-49, 150-56;
Karezza, 158-59; legacy of,
144-45, 161-62; and
m1llennialism, 144; and national
greatness, 146, 153-54, 155-56;
semen as man's microcosm,
159-60; and Sims, 146; theories
of abstinence, 147-48, 156-61;
theories of L.N. Fowler, 149-50;
theones of sexual continence,
155-61; theory of coitus
reservatus, 157-60
Seybert Commission: mvestigates
spiritualistic claims, 112
Shew, Dr. Joel, 81, 82
Sidis, Boris, 226
S1mms, William Gilmore, 88
Sims, Dr. J. Marion: and sexual
reform and national greatness,
146
Skinner, B.F.: Walden Two, 225
Social Destiny of Man, The
!Brisbane), 230
INDEX
Soc1ety for Psychical Research, 226
Spear, John Murray, 10, 102, 103
spiritualism, 1, 4, 7, 10, 11,
100-121 passim, 144,205, 217;
appeal of, 14; contribution to
cult-like psychotherapies,
225-26; Davis's struggles to unify,
105-06; decline of, 111; growth
of, 102; and metaphysical
religious movements, 227-28;
and mlllennialism, 104; and New
Thought, 228; phenomenal, 6, 8,
100-101; prominent supporters
of, 14, 103-04; and psychical
research, 226-27; and reform, 8-9;
as religious heterodoxy, 12-13,
100; resistance to Davis's
Harmonia! Philosophy, 103; and
spirit-rappings, 6, 100; and
vitalism, 6-7, 11
Spiritual Manifestations, 12
Spurzheim, Johann Gaspar, 13, 23,
25, 26, 32, 184, 194; contributes
psychobehaviorism to
phrenology, 124; lecture tour,
123; on natural law, 127
Steiner, Dr. Rudolf, 22 7-28
Stockham, Alice, 158-59
Story, William Wetmore: and
measurement of human frame,
182-84
Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 88
Strindberg, August, 53
Sunderland, LaRoy: conflict with
Collyer over phrenomagnetism,
33,35,36
Swedenborg, Emanuel, 6, 100, 101,
115; doctrine of correspondences,
6
Swedenborgianism, 11, 168, 217
Theosophy, 113, 217, 227-28;
doctrines of, 227; off-shoots of,
228
Thomsonianism, 31, 74
Tingley, Alice, 22 7
Tocqueville, Alexis de, 122, 123
Todd, John, 146
Index
Townshend, Chauncey: Facts on
Mesmerism, 37
Trall, Dr. Russell Thacher, 81, 91
Transcendentalism, 11, 12, 13, 168
Tleatise on Medical Electricity, A
(Althaus), 52-53
Twain, Mark, 15
United States Medical College of
New York, 109
Utopianism, 7
Venus Italica (sculpture), 190

vitalism, 110: and homoeopathy,
6-7, 11; and spiritualism, 7
vivisection, 51-52
Vogt, Oscar, 226
Walden Two (Skinner), 225
Wallace, Alfred Russell, 223
245
Washington, George, 125, 126
water-cure. See hydropathy
Water-Cure Journal and Herald of
Reform, 11; publication history,
82-83
Wells, Samuel, 83
Wesselhoeft, William, 11
Whitman, Walt, 154, 229-30;
influence of phrenology on, 15;
as sexual-eugenic reformer,
145-46, 146-47, 148
women's rights, 8-9, 10, 82, 144;
and sexual self-determination,
144, 145, 154
Worcester, Reverend Elwood, 226
Wright, Henry: "Law of
Reproduction," 153-54
Ziemssen, Hugo Wilhelm von: and
electrophysiology, 57;
Elektricitiit in der Medicin, 52

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Pseudo-Science

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THE UNIVERSITY PRESS OF KENTUCKY

Copyright 1987 by the University Press of Kentucky

Pseudo-science and society in nineteenth-century

2. Robert H. Collyer's Technology of the Soul

3. "Nervous Disease" and Electric Medicine

4. Hydropathy, or the Water-Cure

MARSHALL SCOTT LEGAN

5. Andrew Jackson Davis and Spiritualism

6. Phrenology as Political Science

7. Sexuality and the Pseudo-Sciences

8. Washington Irving and Homoeopathy

9. Sculpture and the Expressive Mechanism

CHARLES THOMAS WALTERS

10. Mesmerism and the Birth of Psychology

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I wish to thank friends and colleagues who cheerfully read the

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unified view of knowledge and human nature that seemingly

and even the language of legitimate research programs. At a

finitesimal quantities that were known to generate in a healthy

An eclectic synthesis that included mesmerism's probing of

simply to improve their lives by realizing greater health and the

won the support of spiritualism's Andrew Jackson Davis, who

number of recurring "laws" and "principles" on all phases of

moved in Transcendentalist and reformist circles, espoused

1879, in which he attempted to synthesize spiritualism, the

inations. Their results, more often than not, were promptly

These various disciplines also attracted authors who believed

ically profiting because it absorbed, if not appropriated outright,

Notes--------------------------------------------1. George H. Daniels, American Science in the Age of fackson (New

10:337-38. Cited in Taylor Stoehr, Hawthorne's Mad Scientists:

of a Medical Heresy (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1971), pp.

Back in 1958 two computer scientists could write: "There are

tradition, European in its origins with E. T.A. Hoffman and Mary

Robert H. Collyer's Technology of the Soul

Robert H. Collyer's Technology of the Soul

a Mr. Young promised to cover the subject more economically in

Robert H. Collyer's Technology of the Soul

In full flower as a pseudo-scientific celebrity; Collyer missed

imaginary tours of private homes, no matter how amusing a few

Robert H. Collyer's Technology of the Soul

to sleep by a whiff of ether, 29 but from his father's distillery,

tists, only indifferent practitioners of dentistry and medicine,

Robert H. Collyer's Technology of the Soul

in their guess about the localization of brain function, and Gall's

a than Edwards's Freedom of the Will for a fresh start on spiritual

Robert H. Collyer's Technology of the Soul

nique for discovering a whole series of new ones. Dread of

A: The operator, duectmg the Image of his thoughts to pomt C.

Fig. 2.2. Collyer's "bowl of molasses" experiment. From Collyer's

nomagnetism is that he had now discovered still another

Robert H. Collyer's Technology of the Soul

for his new pamphlet the lines of psychographic force were

said he was, such rumors circulated freely about most of the

Robert H. Collyer's Technology of the Soul

moment.54 Poe and Collyer, both students of the power of the

Poe of course was gratified by such reactions. Even more

Robert H. Collyer's Technology of the Soul

is nothing but hubris, the ancient sin of pride and blasphemy.

Robert H. Collyer's Technology of the Soul

Our test of a science seems to be whether or not we can derive

hard labor for fraud, Collyer published an article defending him.

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